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GIFT  OF 
Prof.  John  S.  Tatlock 


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STUDIES  IN  THE 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION 
AND  HISTORY. 

By  a.  M.  FAIRBAIRN. 


Tb  yvacTov  rov  Qeov  ^avepdv  eariv  kv  avroci 
b  0edf  yap  avrols  e^avipoxrev." 

Rom.  i.  ig. 


NEW  YORK : 

R.  WORTHINGTON,  750  BROADWAY. 

1880. 


F3 


**  And  hath  made  of  one  blood  alt  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  fact 
of  the  earthy  and  hath  determined  the  times  before  appointed,  and  the  hounds  of 
tJieir  habitation  ;  that  they  shotild  seek  the  Lord,  if  haply  tliey  migJttfeel  after 
Him,  and  find  Him,  thoueh  He  be  not  far  from  every  one  of  us :  for  in  Hint 
we  live,  and  move.,  and  have  our  being:;  as  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  hav* 
said,  '  For  we  are  also  His  offspring-^ " — Acts  xviL  2648. 


/^,a-/L  'f.'izjUU; 


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h  dC  . 


PREFACE. 

T^HE  resolution  to  issue  in  a  collected  form  the  fol- 
lowing "  Studies  "  was  come  to  after  considerable 
hesitation.  They  are  mostly  tentative.  They  embody, 
indeed,  the  results  of  much  thought  and  not  a  little 
inquiry;  but  they  were,  and  still  are,  intended  to  be 
"  Studies  "  preliminary  to  what  should  be  at  once  a 
Philosophy  and  a  History  of  Religion.  They  pretend 
to  be  no  more  ;  but  may,  even  as  such,  have  some  worth 
for  an  age  which  seeks  to  increase  by  a  Science  of 
Religion  the  number  of  the  already  recognized  and 
cultivated  Sciences. 

The  first  and  third  Essays,  and  part  third  of  the 
fourth,  originally  appeared  in  the  Contemporary  Review, 
The  other  parts  of  the  latter  formed  the  substance  of 
two  Lectures  delivered,  in  the  winter  of  1874,  to  the 
Philosophical  Institution,  Edinburgh.  The  second 
paper  was  written  in  the  summer  of  1875,  ^"^  ^^^  °^* 
before  been  printed. 

Aberdeen,  June,  1876. 


fTr^ixrwryni^. 


CONTENTS. 
1. 

Pags 
THE    IDEA    OF    GOD— ITS    GENESIS    AND 

DEVELOPMENT 13-58 

The  question  as  affected  by  Modern  Science  and  Philos- 
ophy       13 

I.  The  Genesis,       ---------16 

Natural  Histories  of  Religion, 17 

Whether  Fear  created  the  Idea,  -----  19 
Or  Revelation,  --.---.-21 
Our  Inquiry  in  the  Historical  Method,  -  -  -  -  23 
Philosophy  not  Creative  of  the  Religious  Idea,  -  -  25 
The  Indo-European  Mythologies  ;  the  Older  the  Simpler,      26 

Oldest  Name  for  God, 30 

Oldest  General  Term, 32 

How  they  are  Related,  and  what  they  Signify,  ■  -  34 
Nature- Worship — What  does  it  Mean  ?  -  -  -  -38 
Paternal  Element  in  the  Indo-European  Idea  of  God,  -  40 
The  Primitive  Indo-European  Idea  -  -  -  -  42 
Its  Factors, 43 

II.  The  Development, 48 

Influence  of  Imagination  and  Conscience,        -        •        -      49 
The  Theogonic  Process,   -------51 

Anthropomorphism  and  Apotheosis,        -        -        -        -      54 

The  Struggle  after  Unity, 57 

Conclusion,       ------.--57 

5 


6      .  CONTENTS. 

II. 

Pagb 
THEISM   AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION,  59-97 

The  Religious  and  Scientific  Conceptions  of  the  World,  59 

The  New  Search  after  a  Cause,        -        ,        -        -        -  61 
Scientific  Speculation,       -------63 

Theism  and  Science,        -------63 

••  Theology  is  Anthropology,"          -        ....  67 

Relation  of  God  to  the  World  variously  conceived,         -  69 

Whether  Teleology  be  necessary  to  Theism,    -        -        -  70 
How  the  Hebrew  conceived  the  Relation  of  God  to  the 

World, 72 

Whether  the  Greeks  conceived  their  Gods  as  Creators,  -  74 

The  Technic  Theory  of  Creation  Scientific,  not  Religious,  77 

Effect  of  the  Skepticism  of  Hume  and  Criticism  of  Kant  79 
How  are  we  to  conceive  the   Relation  of  God  to  the 

World? 82 

Theism  necessary  to  the  Scientific  Interpretation  of  Uni- 
verse,    84 

Evolution :  a  Moral  or  Causal  Theory  of  Creation  ?        -  85 

The  Cause— Mr.  Spencer's  "  Unknowable,"    -        -        -  88 

Man  the  Interpretation  of  Nature,  -----  93 

Mind  in  Premiss  and  Conclusion,             -        -        -        -  95 


III. 


THE  BELIEF   IN   IMMORTALITY  -       -  99-110 

PART  I— INTRODUCTORY, 99 

I.  The  Belief  and  the  Philosophies,         -        -        -        -      99 

II.  The  Origin  and  Evolution  of  the  Belief,     -        -        -    104 

III.  Significance  of  its  History  for  Modem  Thought,        -     108 

PART  II.— THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA,         -       -     111-149 

1.  The  Hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda, m 

2.  The  Brahmanas,  -       -       -       -       -       -       -    121 


CONTENTS.  7 

Pagb. 

3.  The  Upanishads,  -        -        -        -        -        -        -127 

4.  The  Laws  of  Manu,      -        -        -        -        -        -        -134 

5.  The  Philosophical  Systems,         •        -        «        -        -    138 

6.  Buddhism,    -.-----..    142 

7.  The  Reformed  Brahmanism,        -        -        -        -        .    145 

PART  III.— THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE,    -       -    150-202 

I.  Introductory,  Order  and  Development  of  Religious 

Thought  in  Greece, 150 

II.  Homer,        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -156 

III.  Hesiod,         ----.-...    r72 

IV.  The  Mysteries,     ---.----     17-5 

1.  The  Eleusinian,  •        •        -        •        -        -175 

2.  The  Orphici,        -------     179 

V.  The  Pre-Sokratic  Philosophy, 182 

1.  The  earlier  lonians,     ----.-     183 

2.  Pythagoras  and  the  Pythagoreans,      -        -        -     184 

3.  The  Eleatics, 186 

4.  Herakleitos,  ----...     187 

5.  Empedokles,        -        -        -        -        -        -        -188 

6.  Anaxagoras,         -        -        -        -        -        -        -189 

VI.  The  Lyric  and  Tragic  Poets,        -----    191 

1.  The  Lyric  Poets,  ---..-    192 

2.  The  Tragic  Poets,        -        -        -        -        -        -193 

VII.  Plato, 197 

IV. 

THE     PLACE     OF     THE     INDO-EUROPEAN 
AND    SEMITIC   RACES    IN  HISTORY,  -      -  203 

PART  L— COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  AND 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY,       203-229 

I.  Comparative  Psychology,    ------    203 

Its  Problems,        -        .        -        -  -        -        -    204 


CONTENTS. 

Vkgb.. 

Mind  and  Nature,        -------  205 

Mind  Progressive  because  Free,          -        -        -        -  207 

Motives,  while  not  necessitating,  necessary  to  Choice,  210 

Origin  and  Influence  of  Ideals,            -        •        -        -  211 

Dynamic  Force  of  the  Great  Man,      -        -        -        -  212 

Comparative  Psychology  the  Psychology  of  Peoples,  213 

Its  Subjects  and  Method, 215 

Relation  to  other  Comparative  Sciences,            -        -  219 

And  Philosophy  of  History,        -----  222 

II.  The  Races  to  be  Studied, 225 

Their  Limits,  Branches,  Names, 225 

Their  Distinctive  Qualities,         -        -        .        .        -  227 

PART  IL—THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION,       230-261 

I.  Civilization,         ------.-  230 

Relation  of  Modern  to  Ancient,          ...        -  231 

The  Individual  and  Society,        -        -        .        -        -  233 

II.  The  Races— Their  Pre-Historic  State,        -        -        -  236 

The  Indo-European,    ----.--  236 

The  Semitic, 241 

III.  The  Fresh  Races  and  the  Old  Cultures,     -        -        -  244 

The  New  Civilizations  not  simply  Imitations  of  Old,  245 
Their  Efiicient  and  their  Suggestive  Cause,        -        -  246 
Influence  of  Geographical  position  and  Ethnic  rela- 
tions,    ---------  249 

1.  On  Assyria,  --------  249 

2.  On  Phoenicia, -  252 

Semitic  Character  of  their  Civilizations,     -        -        -  257 

Greece,        ---------  259 

Rome, ...-  259 

PART  III.— THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION,         -       -  262 

I.  Religion  and  Man,      ---«--      262-304 

Cause  of  its  Universality,    -•••--  263 

*'           Variety, 264 


CONTENTS. 


Differences  of  Religious  Faculty  in  Peoples, 
Forms  under  which  the  Religious  Faculty  works, 
Whether  Semites  possess  a  Monotheistic  Instinct.     - 

II.  The  Religions  of  the  Races — Their  Characteristic 
Principles  and  Differences, 

1.  The  Semitic  Religions,  -        -        . 

Their  Names  for  God,    -  -        - 

Their  Theocratic  Character,  - 
Ethical  and  Authoritative, 

Symbolism,      -        -        -  .        - 

The  Semitic  Idea  of  Deity,  - 

The  Hebrew  Religion,    -  -        - 

2.  The  Indo-European  Religions, 

Their  Names  for  Deity, 

Their  Naturalism,  -        -        . 

The  Limitations  it  imposed  on  Deity, 

Effect  on  Idea  of  Man,  • 

Their  Political  Character, 

Hellenism, 


III. 


Their  Respective  Contributions  to  Christianity, 

Hebraism  and  Hellenism, 

Their  Parts  in  the  Preparationes  Evangelicce 


Page. 
265 
270 
272 

273 

274 
274 
277 
278 
279 
281 
283 

288 
288 
289 
291 
292 

293 
296 

299 
300 
301 


PART    IV.— THE   RACES    IN   LITERATURE    AND 

PHILOSOPHY, 305 


I.  Literature  and  Culture, 
II.  Language  and  Literature    - 

The  Languages  of  the  Two  Races, 
Their  Literatures,        -        -        . 


III.  Their  Mythologies  and  Poetries, 
Source  of  their  Differences, 
Indo-European  Mythologies, 

Semitic,         -       «*        -        . 
Indo-European  Poetry, 

Semitic,  «    .       -       . 


308 

309 
312 

3H 
314 
316 
317 
318 
320 


lO 


CONTENTS. 


IV.  The  Races  in  Philosophy,    -        -  .      - 

I.  The  Ancient  Philosophic  Peoples, 
Non-Semitic,         .        -        -        - 
Chiefly  Indo-European,  and  Why? 
The  Hindu  and  the  Greek, 

II.  The  Schools  of  Alexandria, 
Judeo-Greek  Philosophy,     - 
Neo-Platonic,        .... 
Christian  Conception  of  God, 

III.  The  Arab  Philosophy, 

Character  of  People,    -  -  . 

Of  their  Philosophy,    -  -  - 

Influence  on  Modern,  -  -  - 

Spinoza,       -       -       -  -  . 


Page, 

'  322 

•  322 

•  323 

•  325 

■  334 

•  335 
337 

•  338 

•  341 

•  341 

■  344 

■  34S 

•  346 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD:  ITS  GENESIS 
AND   DEVELOPMENT. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD:   ITS  GEN- 
ESIS AND  DEVELOPMENT. 


IWrODERN  Science,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Modern 
Philosophy,  on  the  other,  have  raised  in  the  most 
distinct  and  precise  form  the  question  as  to  the  Genesis 
of  the  Idea  of  God.  Religion  is  practically  co-extensive 
with  man  ;  its  presence,  even  among  savage  tribes,  is 
the  rule,  its  absence  the  exception.  Peoples  the  most 
distant,  and  indeed  opposite,  in  genius  and  culture  and 
geographical  position,  with  languages,  institutions,  and 
civilization  in  every  shade  and  degree  of  difference,  have 
yet  a  religion  as  their  common  characteristic,  have  never 
as  peoples  outgrown  it;  and  though  they  may  have 
changed  its  form,  have  only  done  so  to  find  in  a 
reformed  religion  renewed  life.  A  nation's  genius  rises 
as  its  consciousness  of  God  deepens,  and  the  one  is 
highest  when  the  other  is  most  intense."*  The  point 
where  the  genius  and  culture  of  Greece  culminated  was 
the  very  point  where  it  had  come  to  realize  most  vividly 
the  being  and  government  of  God.  The  two  eras  in  our 
English  history  most  distinguished  for  genius  and  hero- 

*  M.  Renan  finds  the  characteristic  which  mainly  distinguishes 
the  Indo-European  and  Semitic  from  the  other  races  of  mankind 
to  be  their  moral  and  religious  superiority  {Histoire  des  Langues 
Semitiques,  pp.  500  ff.  (4th  ed.). 


14  THE  tDEA  OF  GOD. 

ism,  were  also  the  most  distinguished  for  intensity  and 
sincerity  of  religious  life. 

Religion  thus  seems  so  necessary  to  the  nature  of 
man,  so  pervades  and  determines  his  individual  and 
social  life,  that  Science,  in  its  inquiries  into  the  origin, 
constitution,  and  original  condition  of  man,  has  come 
face  to  face  with  the  questions,  How  did  man  become 
religious  ?  What  was  the  earliest  form  of  his  religious 
faith  ?  How  can  the  practical  universality  and  apparent 
necessity  of  his  belief  in  one  God,  or  in  many  gods,  be 
explained?  The  answers  have,  on  the  whole,  been 
growingly  adverse  to  belief  in  a  primitive  Theism.  The 
extreme  antiquity  of  man  which  Geology  is  inclined  to 
affirm,  the  aboriginal  barbarism  Archaeology  claims  to 
have  proved,  the  primitive  Nature-worship  Comparative 
Mythology  is  said  to  reveal,  the  savage  condition  which 
Ethnology  exhibits  as  the  point  from  which  civilization 
starts,  and,  lastly,  Mr.  Darwin's  attempt  to  trace  the 
"  Descent  of  Man  "  from  a  "  hairy  "  ancestor,  seem  to 
demand  a  natural  descent  of  Theism  from  Atheism,  of 
our  religious  ideas  from  the  rude  fears  and  frightful 
dreams  of  anthropomorphous  animals. 

The  question  has  also  been  raised,  quite  as  sharply 
too,  in  the  proposition  which  Positivism  has  enunciated 
as  to  the  law  of  historical  progression.  Comte's  law  of 
mental  evolution  is  too  well  known  to  require  statement 
here.  The  "  theological  or  fictitious  "  is  the  first  stage 
of  our  knowledge,  "  the  necessary  starting-point  of  the 
human  mind."  *  Here  individual  and  race  must  alike 
begin.  In  this  first  stage  there  are  three  progressive 
sub-stages — Fetichism,  Polytheism,  Monotheism,  each 

*  **  Cours  de  Philosophic  Positive,"  vol.  i.  p.  3. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  I^ 

transitional,  each  fictitious.  To  Positivism  the  primitive 
faith  of  the  world  is  a  Fetichism  common  to  infant  and 
savage,  dog  and  monkey,*  and  the  English  disciples 
who  on  other  points  differ  most  from  their  master  are 
yet  at  one  with  him  here.f 

Of  course,  the  agreement  on  this  point  of  Science  and 
Positivism  is  superficial,  and  should  not  be  allowed  to 
hide  the  fundamental  difference  of  their  principles  and 
aims.  Science  does  not,  but  Positivism,  as  Comte 
understood  it,$  does,  pronounce  against  the  truth  of 
theology.  Mr.  Darwin  thinks  his  speculations  in  no 
way  hostile  to  belief  in  the  being  of  God,§  but  M.  Comte 
could  not  allow  the  "  fictions  "  of  the  theological  stage 
any  place  among  the  facts  of  the  positive.  The  differ- 
ence between  Science  and  Positivism  is  thus  funda- 
mental. It  is  the  accident  of  the  one  to  ignore,  but  the 
essence  of  the  other  to  contradict,  theological  belief. 
Their  accidental  agreement  on  the  point  in  question 
only  helps  to  sharpen  their  essential  antithesis.  Science 
does  not  seek  by  its  theories  to  supersede  or  abolish 
religion  ;  but  Positivism  dogmatically  promulgates  its 
fundamental  law  that  it  may  evolve  the  Atheism  which 
claims  to  be  the  new  religion  of  humanity. 

The  question  to  be  here  discussed  is  the  question 
which  modern  Science  and  Positivism  have  thus  com- 

*  "Cours  de  Philosophic  Positive,"  vol.  v.  pp.  30  £f. 

t  J.  S.  Mill,  "  Auguste  Comte  and  Positivism,"  p.  12,  pp.  18  ff.  ; 
"  System  of  Logic,"  vol.  ii.  p.  528.  G.  H.  Lewes,  "  Hist,  of 
Philos.,"  vol.  iv.  pp.  248  ff.  (ed.  1852).  Herbert  Spencer,  Fort- 
nightly Review,  vol.  vii.  (N.  S.)  pp.  536-550. 

\  "  Cours  de  Philos.  Posit.,"  vol  i.  pp.  4-10  ;  Mill,  "  Comte  and 
Posivitism,"  p.  14. 

§  "Descent  of  Man,"  vol.  i.  p.  65. 


l6  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

bined  to  raise — How  did  the  idea  of  God  arise  ?  What 
was  its  earliest  form  ?  What  the  law  or  what  the 
process  of  its  development  ?  The  questions  are  cer- 
tainly in  some  respects  grave  enough,  touch  not  only  a 
point  at  which  Christian  thought  and  scientific  inquiry 
come  into  the  sharpest  collision,  but  also  the  speculative 
tendencies  most  threatening  to  religious  truth.  Neither 
religion  in  general,  nor  Christianity  in  particular,  de- 
pends on  the  answer  to  any  question  in  physical  science, 
and  our  faith  has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  most  search- 
ing investigations  into  the  origin  and  primitive  condition 
of  man.  But  the  tendency,  on  the  one  hand,  to  erect  a 
law  of  evolution,  enacted  and  administered  without  any 
conscious  moral  law-giver,  into  the  grand  principle 
of  human  progress,  and  the  tendency,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  resolve  religion  into  the  expression  of  sub- 
jective states,  the  externalization  in  forms  and  acts  of 
the  religious  consciousness,  are  much  more  dangerous  ; 
because  they  contain,  in  so  far  as  the  one  seeks  order 
and  progress  in  the  history  of  humanity,  and  the  other 
the  explanation  of  the  various  ethnical  religions  in  the 
nature  and  faculties  of  man,  elements  of  neglected  but 
most  significant  truths.  Our  essay,  which  is  meant  to 
deal,  more  or  less  directly,  with  each  of  these  phases 
of  modern  thought,  falls  into  two  parts.  The  first  will 
discuss  the  genesis  of  the  idea  of  God,  therefore  the 
question  raised  by  Science.  The  second  will  discuss 
the  development  of  the  idea,  therefore  the  question 
raised  by  every  theory  of  evolution,  whether  coming 
from  the  transcendental  or  positivist  side. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  17 

I. 

"  Natural  Histories  of  Religion  "  are  as  old  as  Skep- 
ticism. Doubt  has  always  been  forced,  all  the  more  be- 
cause exceptional^  to  justify  itself  against  belief.  Coarse 
or  shallow  minds  have  snatched  at  the  readiest  and  least 
creditable  explanation.  J^eligion  is  an  invention  of 
priests,  or  poets,  or  rulers.  This  explanation  was  not 
unknown  to  the  ancient  world,  figured  largely  in  the  anti- 
religious  French  and  English  literature  of  last  century, 
and  still  plays  a  part  in  the  lower  infidel  discussions  of 
to-day.  But  the  explanation  is  so  manifestly  superficial 
and  unsatisfactory,  that  it  falls  to  pieces  the  moment 
the  inquiry  becomes  earnest  and  searching.  Subtler 
minds  saw  that  a  phenomenon  so  uniA^ersal  as  religion 
must  have  its  roots  in  the  nature  of  man,  and  his  rela- 
tion to  the  world  around  him.  Hence  the  Epicurean, 
who  hated  a  curiosum  etplemim  negotii  deuvi*  held  that 
fear  had  created  the  gods.  The  terrible  forms  seen  in 
dreams,  the  system  of  the  heavens,  the  seasons,  tem- 
pests, meteors,  and  lightnings,  created  the  notion  of  in- 
visible or  spiritual  beings,  of  gods,  and  the  terror  which 
they  inspired  gave  birth  to  religion. f  Hume,  with  a 
rare  subtlety  of  analysis  and  felicity  of  illustration, 
tried  to  evolve  the  idea  of  gods  out  of  the  ignorance  and 
fear  that  personified  the  "  unknown  causes  "  of  the  ac- 

*  Cicero,  "  De  Nat.  Deor.,"  lib.  i.  20. 

t  Sext.  Empir.  Adv.  Math.,  ix.  25:  Lucretius,  v.'  1161-1240. 
The  notion  that  fear  is  the  mother  of  religion  runs  through  the 
whole  poem  of  Lucretius  and  crops  out  everywhere.  Yet  th5  fine 
invocation  of  Alma  Vemis,  with  which  his  poem  opens,  shows  what 
a  fascination  the  idea  of  the  divine  had  for  him.  It  was  the  actual 
religion  that  he  saw  around  him  which  he  hated,  for  "  Scepiics  ilia 
Rcligio peperit  scelerosa  atqiie  impia  facta  '*  (i.  82). 
2 


1 8  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

cidents  and  eccentricities  of  Nature,  the  idea  of  one 
God  or  Monotheism  out  of  the  gradual  concentration 
of  flattery  and  offerings  on  one  of  these  personifications.* 
Hence  Polytheism  was  the  deification  of  many  unknown 
causes  of  natural  phenomena  ;  Monotheism,  the  deifica- 
tion of  one  unknown  cause.  Dupuis  held  that  all  reli- 
gions had  their  origin  in  a  worship  of  nature  pure  and 
simple,  and  that  "  les  Dieux  sont  enfans  des  homines. ^'^ 
But  he  did  not  explain  the  one  thing  needing  explana- 
tion— how  and  why  man  had  begun  to  worship  at  all. 
Comte  supposed  the  primitive  Fetichism  to  rise  from 
infant  or  savage,  by  a  tendency  which  they  had  in  com- 
mon with  dog  or  monkey,  ascribing  to  natural  objects, 
organic  or  inorganic,  a  life  analogous  to  their  own.$ 
Sir  John  Lubbock  thinks  that  the  rudest  savages,  rep- 
resentatives of  aboriginal  man,  are  actual  Atheists,§  and 
describes  the  transition  to  Fetichism  ||  somewhat  as  Lu- 
cretius did, — the  explanation  of  the  Roman  Epicurean, 
however,  being,  on  the  whole,  the  more  philosophic  and 
elevated.  Herbert  Spencer  considers  that  the  rudiment- 
ary form  of  all  religion  is  the  propitiation  of  dead  an- 
cestors, who  are  supposed  to  be  still  existing,  and  to  be 
capable  of  working  good  or  ill   to  their  descendants.^ 

*  "  Natural  History  of  Religion,"  sections  i.-viii. 

t  "  Origine  de  Cultes,  vol.  i.  p.  viii.  and  pp.  3-42." 

X  "  Cours  de  Philos.  Posit.,"  vol.  v.  p.  37. 

§  "Origin  of  Civilization,"  p.  119. 

II  The  main  factors  in  the  change  are  dreams  (p.  126),  disease 
(p.  131),  divination,  and  sorcery  (p.  141) ;  see  also  p.  221. 

1"  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  vii.  (N.  S.)  p.  536.  Mr.  Spencer  has 
now  more  fully  developed  his  views,  profusely  illustrating  them, 
as  his  way  is,  in  his  "  Principles  of  Sociology,"  cc.  ix.  ff.  I  regret 
that  they  cannot  be  here  noticed  in  detail.  Chap,  xx.,  on  Ances- 
tor-Worship in  General,"  specially  invites  criticism,  were  it  only 
for  the  curious  misapprehensions  it  contains. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  I^ 

Mr.  Darwin's  theory  is  eclectic,  and  seems  to  combine 
the  various  elements  of  an  ascription  of  life  to  natural 
objects,  dreams,  and  fears.* 

An  analytic  and  categorical  criticism  of  these  Natural 
Histories  of  Religion  cannot  be  attempted  here  and 
now.  But  it  may  be  observed  that,  amid  minor  differ- 
ences, they  agree  in  their  three  main  propositions — (i) 
that  man  was  originally  destitute  of  religious  belief ;  (2) 
that  delusions  due  to  ignorance,  fear,  or  dreams  were 
the  causes  of  his  earliest  faith ;  and  (3)  that  the  primi- 
tive religion  was  one  of  terror,  a  series  of  rude  attempts 
to  propitiate  supposed  unfriendly  beings.  Religion  is 
thus  derived  from  the  lower  faculties  and  passions  of 
man,  and,  as  a  necessary  result,  its  form  is  low — lower, 
one  would  think,  than  the  aboriginal  Atheism.  It  is, 
too,  in  its  nature  false  and  delusive,  without  objective 
reality,  the  creation  of  miserable  ignorance  and  trem- 
bling fear,  a  very  torment  to  the  minds  that  had  created 
it.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  a  religion  so  produced,  and 
of  such  a  nature,  could  be  otherwise  than  injurious  to 
man,  its  terrors  fatal  to  his  incipient  moral  nature,  its 
delusions  bewildering  and  oppressive  to  his  intellect,  its 
entire  influence  tending  to  throw  the  savage  back  into 
the  animalism  from  which  he  had  lately  emerged.  Such 
a  religion  could  only  increase  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  progress,  make  civilization  less  possible.  Then  how 
can  the  admitted  virtues  and  graces  of  religion  be 
evolved  from  this  barbarous  faith  ?  Ex  nihilo  nihil  Jit. 
The  highest  moral  qualities  do  not  spring  from  the  low- 
est. This  "Natural  History  of  Religion"  would  re- 
quire an  inverted  actual  history  of  religion,  the  reversal 

*  "  Descent  of  Man,"  vol.  i-  pp.  65-68. 


20  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD, 

of  its  historical  place  in  society  and  the  State.  It  is 
not  without  significance  that,  while  M.  Comte  was  in- 
troducing his  law  of  evolution  to  the  world,  finding  the 
roots  of  religion  in  Fetichism  and  the  final  and  perfect 
system  in  a  Positivism  without  God,  the  two  profound- 
est  thinkers  then  living  were  formulating  very  different 
doctrines — the  one  the  doctrine  that  a  nation  and  its 
religion  rose  together,  that,  apart  from  religion,  a  nation, 
with  its  institutions  and  laws,  was  impossible ;  *  the 
other,  that  "  the  religion  and  foundation  of  a  State  are 
one  and  the  same,  in  and  for  themselves  identical,"  and 
that  "  the  people  who  has  a  bad  conception  of  God  has 
also  a  bad  State,  bad  government,  and  bad  laws."  t 

Before  finally  dismissing  these  theories,  it  may  be 
well  to  notice  a  few  of  their  assumptions.  They  assume 
Ae  truth  of  an  empirical  philosophy.  They  resolve 
religious  ideas  into  impressions  of  sense.  Man's  faculty 
or  tendency  to  believe  in  invisible  beings  is  unexplained. 
If  infant  and  dog,  savage  and  monkey,  alike  think  natu- 
ral objects  alive,  the  man  does,  the  animal  does  not, 

*  Schelling,  *'  Philosophic  der  Mythologie,"  i.  ^t^. 

t  Hegel,  "  Religions-philosophic,"  i.  p.  241.  A  sketch  of  the 
German  philosophies  of  religion,  in  so  far  as  they  touch  the  genesis 
of  the  idea  of  God,  although  a  very  tempting  subject,  is  not  one 
that  can  be  touched  within  the  limits  of  a  short  essay.  It  would 
have  to  start  with  Lessing,  Herder,  and  Kant,  and  come  down  to 
the  younger  Fichte,  Von  Hartmann,  and  Pfleiderer,  and  would  lead 
us  into  the  very  heart  of  the  questions  that  have  agitated  the  Ger- 
man philosophic  schools  for  now  almost  a  century.  German 
thought  on  this  matter  forms,  on  the  whole,  an  admirable  counter- 
active to  English  and  French.  The  elements  the  one  ignores  are, 
as  a  rule,  the  elements  the  other  emphasizes,  though  English  em- 
pirical and  physico-scientific  thought  is  beginning  to  tell  at  the  close 
of  this  century  in  Germany,  very  much  as  English  rationalistic 
thought  told  at  the  beginning  of  last. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


21 


formulate  his  thoughts  into  a  religion.  Why?  If  man 
can  get  out  of  the  Fetich  stage,  he  can  also  get  into  it. 
Why  ?  Faith  is  not  the  result  of  sensations.  Mind  is 
not  passive,  but  active,  in  the  formation  of  beliefs.  The 
constitutive  element  is  what  mind  brings  to  nature,  not 
what  nature  brings  to  mind  ;  otherwise  no  spiritual  and 
invisible  could  be  conceived.  Our  theorists  assume, 
too,  that  the  aboriginal  state  of  our  cultured  peoples 
was  similar  to  that  of  the  lowest  living  savages.  But 
surely  the  difference  of  their  conditions,  the  one  savage, 
the  other  civilized,  hardly  warrants  such  an  assumption 
—  implies  rather  original  differences,  ph3^sical  and 
mental,  fatal  to  it.*  Then  they  assume  a  theory  of 
development  which  has  not  a  single  historical  instance 
to  verify  it.  Examples  are  wanted  of  peoples  who  have 
grown,  without  foreign  influence,  from  Atheism  into 
Fetichism,  and  from  it  through  the  intermediate  stages 
into  Monotheism  ;  and  until  such  examples  be  given, 
hypotheses  claiming  to  be  "  Natural  Histories  of  Relig- 
ion "  must  be  judged  hypotheses  still.  "  Spontaneous 
generation  "  is  as  little  an  established  fact  in  mental  as 
in  physical  science,  and  its  truth  need  not  be  assumed 
until  it  be  proved. 

W^e  cannot,  therefore,  accept  any  hypothesis  which 
would  evolve  the  idea  of  God  from  delusions,  or  dreams, 
or  fears.  Shall  we  trace  it,  then,  to  a  supernatural 
source,  to  a  primitive  revelation.?  But  a  primitive 
revelation  were  a  mere  assumption,  incapable  of  proof 
— capable  of  most  positive  disproof.  Although  often 
advanced  in  the  supposed  interests  of  religion,  the  prin- 
ciple it  assumes  is  most  irreligious.     If  man  is  depend- 

*  Renan's  "  Histoire  des  Langues  Semitiques,"  p.  495. 


22  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

ent  on  an  outer  revelation  for  his  idea  of  God,  then  he 
must  have  what  Schelling  happily  termed  "  an  original 
Atheism  of  consciousness."  *'  Religion  cannot,  in  that 
case,  be  rooted  in  the  nature  of  man — must  be  implanted 
from  without.  The  theory  that  would  derive  man's  re- 
ligion from  a  revelation  is  as  bad  as  the  theory  that 
would  derive  it  from  distempered  dreams.  Revelation 
may  satisfy  or  rectify,  but  cannot  create,  a  religious 
capacity  or  instinct,  and  we  have  the  highest  authority 
for  thinking  that  man  was  created  "  to  seek  the  Lord, 
if  haply  he  might  feel  after  and  find  Him  " — the  finding 
being  by  no  means  dependent  on  a  written  or  traditional 
word.  If  there  was  a  primitive  revelation,  it  must  have 
been— unless  the  word  is  used  in  an  unusual  and  mis- 
leading sense — either  written  or  oral.  If  written,  it 
could  hardly  be  primitive,  for  writing  is  an  art,  a  not 
very  early  acquired  art,  and  one  which  does  not  allow 
documents  of  exceptional  value  to  be  easily  lost.  If  it 
was  oral,  then  either  the  language  for  it  was  created  or 
it  was  no  more  primitive  than  the  written.  Then  an 
oral  revelation  becomes  a  tradition,  and  a  tradition  re- 
quires either  a  special  caste  for  its  transmission,  becomes 
therefore  its  property,  or  must  be  subjected  to  multitu- 
dinous changes  and  additions  from  the  popular  imagina- 
tion— becomes,  therefore,  a  wild  commingling  of  broken 
and  bewildering  lights.  But  neither  as  documentary 
nor  traditional  can  any  traces  of  a  primitive  revelation 
be  discovered,  and  to  assume  it  is  only  to  burden  the 
question  with  a  thesis  which  renders  a  critical  and  philo- 
sophical discussion  alike  impossible. 

The  natural  and  supernatural  theories,  as  they  may 

*  "Philos.  der  Mythol,"  i.  pp.  141,  142. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


23 


be  termed,  may  here  be  dismissed.  Let  us  now  attempt 
to  approach  the  question  in  what  may  be  termed  the 
historical  method.  This  method  is,  indeed,  of  limited 
application.  The  history  of  no  people  reaches  back  to 
a  very  remote  antiquity.  Then,  the  religions  of  the 
ancient  world  are,  with  one  exception,  polytheistic  in 
their  earliest  historical  form,  and  their  Polytheism  so 
developed  as  to  indicate  ages  of  growth.  They  seem 
like  an  ancient  forest  in  which  the  underwood  has 
become  so  dense  as  to  render  any  attempt  to  pass 
through  it,  or  discover  the  order  and  time  of  growth, 
alike  hopeless.  But,  happily,  many  laborers,  long  en- 
gaged in  clearing  the  underwood,  have  met  with  such 
success,  that  diligent  search,  such  as  is  now  possible, 
among  the  roots  of  the  old  mythologies,  may  bring  us 
near  the  discovery  of  the  thing  we  seek. 

In  this  inquiry  we  must  confine  ourselves,  as  much  as 
possible,  to  the  limits  within  which  the  method  is  ap- 
plicable. Adopting,  as  meanwhile  the  most  convenient, 
the  familiar  division  of  the  race  into  the  Indo-European, 
Semitic,  and  Turanian  families,  we  shall  confine  our- 
selves to  the  first,  leaving  aside,  though  for  opposite 
reasons,  the  second  and  the  third.  This  limitation  has 
a  double  advantage.  It  connects  the  discussion  with 
ourselves.  The  religious  ideas  whose  origin  and  evolu- 
tion are  to  be  examined  were  the  ideas  of  our  forefathers. 
There  is  no  proof  that  the  lake-dwellers  of  Switzerland, 
the  flint-hatchet  makers  of  Abbeville,  or  the  aborigines 
of  Scotland,  were  either  our  ancestors  or  their  kindred  ; 
but  there  is  the  most  positive  proof  that  we  are  the 
lineal  descendants  of  the  Indo-Europeans  who  emigrated 
from  North-western  Asia.  The  other  advantage  is,  that 
the  Indo-European  family  seems  to  offer  decisive  dis- 


24  THR  idea  of  god. 

proof  of  a  primitive  Theism.  If  there  have  been  in 
certain  branches  of  the  Semitic  family  tendencies  to 
Monotheism,  the  most  distinctive  branches  of  the  Indo- 
European  have  tended  towards  the  most  extravagant 
and  multitudinous  Polytheisms.  No  Indo-European 
people  has  had  a  Jahveh  like  the  Hebrews,  or  an  Allah 
like  the  Mohammedans  ;*  nor  has  any  one  had  a  pro- 
phet, save  the  partly  exceptional  Zoroaster,  authoritative 
like  Moses,  or  exclusive  like  Mohammed. f  The  Indo- 
European  has  been,  as  a  rule,  tolerant  of  the  different 
gods  of  different  nations ;  the  Semite  intolerant  of  all 
gods  except  his  own.  The  tolerance,  in  the  one  case, 
has  increased  the  tendency  to  multiply  gods  ;  the  in- 
tolerance, in  the  other  case,  has  intensified  the  passion 
for  unity.  But  under  this  difference  there  lies  what  at 
first  seems  similarity,  but  becomes  on  deeper  examina- 
tion a  sharp  antithesis.  Indo-European  man  has  had 
his  passion  for  unity,  but  his  unity  has  been  abstract, 
impersonal.  Unity  of  person  has  been  the  goal  of 
Semitic  thought,  but  unity  of  conception  the  goal  of 
Indo-European. $  The  highest  being  of  the  first  was 
personal,    masculine,  Jahveh,    Allah ;  but   the    highest 

*  Lassen,  "Indische  Alterthumskunde,"  vol.  i.  p.  496  {2d  ed.). 

t  Renan,  "  Histoire  des  Langues  Semitiques,"  p.  8,  compares, 
not  very  happily,  I  think,  the  Semitic  prophet  to  the  Indian 
Avatar.  The  two  are,  save  in  one  or  two  superficial  points,  essen- 
tial contrasts.  The  Indian  Avatar  doctrine  rests  on  the  communi- 
cableness  of  the  divine  nature,  but  Hebrew  prophecy  on  its  incom- 
municableness. 

X  This  is  only  another  side  of  the  contrast  Renan  points  out 
between  the  capacity  of  the  Indo-European  race  to  produce  origi- 
nal philosophies,  and  the  incapacity  of  the  Semitic  to  do  so  ('*  His- 
toire des  Langues  Semitiques,"  pp.  9  ff.). 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  25 

being  of  the  second  was  impersonal,  neuter,  Brahma,* 
TO  u\>Tii}q  ov.  We  must  therefore  distinguish  between  the 
religious  and  philosophic  forms  of  the  idea  of  God. 
The  Indo-European  tendency  was  to  religious  multi- 
plicities, but  to  philosophic  unities.  The  unity  or 
monism,  which  was  the  product  of  the  speculative  reason 
in  the  historic  period,  was  by  no  means  a  Monotheism ; 
while  the  multitude  of  mythological  persons  which 
sprang  up  in  the  pre-historic  period  certainly  formed  a 
Polytheism. 

It  is  the  more  necessary  to  emphasize  this  distinction 
as  so  much  has  been  written  about  the  development  of 
Monotheism  among  the  Greeks.  It  is  not  time  yet  to 
discuss  that  part  of  our  question.  And  here  we  can 
only  note  the  contrast  between  the  Deity  of  a  philosophy, 
and  the  God  of  a  religion.  The  one  is  an  object  of 
worship,  the  othgr  a  product  of  speculation.  In  the  one 
case,  God  must  be  conceived  as  a  person  or  power 
standing  in  a  certain  relation  to  the  worshipper ;  in  the 
other,  Deity  is  the  first  or  final  proposition  forming  the 
base  or  the  summit  of  a  system  of  reasoned  truth.  Re- 
ligion may  exist  without  philosophy,  has  always  existed 
before  it;  and  may,  when  it  has  passed  from  the  instinc- 
tive and  imaginative  stages  into  the  reflective,  attempt 
to  represent  in  system,  or  justify  to  thought,  its  idea  of 
God ;  but  while  the  two  may  thus  become  allies,  they 
can  never,  save  in  the  mind  of  some  transcendentalist, 
be  identical.  Religion  has  often  given  the  idea  of  God 
to  philosophy,  but  philosophy  has  never  given  a  God  to 

*  Brahma  (mas.)  is  the  first  god  in  the  Hindu  Trimurtti,  but 
Brahma  (neut.)  is  the  universal  soul  or  substance  of  Hindu  philo- 
sophy. 


26  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

religion.  The  speculative  God  of  the  Brahmans  remain- 
ed an  object  of  speculation."*  And  not  one  of  the 
Greek  schools  gave  a  God  to  Greek  .worship.  The 
development  of  abstract  conceptions — space,  time,  the 
infinite,  the  absolute,  the  supreme  good — is  not  the 
development  of  Monotheism,  just  as  a  system  of  thought 
is  not  a  religion. 

We  return  to  our  problem.  What  was  the  genesis  of 
the  religious  idea  of  God  ?  Our  first  step  must  be  to 
determine  the  primitive  form  of  that  idea  among  the 
Indo-European  peoples.  Here  we  assume  (i)  the  origi- 
nal unity  of  the  Indo-European  family  of  nations  ;  (2) 
that  the  rudimentary  form  of  their  civilization  was  in 
existence  prior  to  their  separation ;  t  and  (3)  that  the 
Indo-European  mythologies  send  their  roots  into  that 
distant  time,  are  branches  whose  parent  stem  is  the  faith 
of  the  still  united  family.  Discussion,  of  mythological 
theories  is  here  unnecessary.  Our  own  view,  and  the 
reason  for  it,  will  appear  in  the  sequel.  % 

Let  us  start,  then,  from  the  well-known  fact  that  while 
the  Indo-European  mythologies  in  their  earliest  literary 
forms  reveal  developed  and  multitudinous  Polytheism, 
their  elements  become  simpler  and  fewer  the  farther 


*  Nor  does  the  worship  of  Brahma  (mas.)  seem  to  have  been 
general  (Lassen,  "Indis.  Alterthumsk.,  i.  p.  776,  ist  edition).  He 
was  too  much  a  product  of  the  reflective  priestly  consciousness  to 
be  a  people's  god. 

t  See  pp.  272  ff. 

X  A  most  exhaustive  and  philosophic  discussion  of  mythological 
theories,  combined  with  a  triumphant  assertion  of  the  origin  of 
mythology  in  the  religious  conceptions  of  a  people,  will  be  found 
in  Schelling's  "  Philos.  der  Mythol.,"  vol.  i.  Erstes  Buck. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


27 


they  are  traced  back.*  The  more  cultured  Greeks 
believed  that  the  religion  of  the  ancients  had  been  much 
simpler  than  that  of  their  own  age,  and  that  the  myth- 
ical elements  had  been  added  either  for  poetical  or 
political  purposes.!  While  each  philosophic  school  had, 
according  to  its  own  fundamental  principles,  a  different — 
either  allegorical,  physical,  or  historical — method  of 
interpreting  the  national  mythology,  each  agreed  with 
the  others  in  repudiating  the  literal  and  popular  sensed 
In  the  Homeric  and  Hesiodic  poems  fragments  can  be 
found  which  seem  like  the  survivors  of  an  earlier  faith, 
and  look,  even  in  the  old  epics,  like  the  curiously  carved 
stones  of  an  ancient  Gothic  cathedral  built  into  the  walls 
of  a  modern  church,  or,  to  use  Welcker's  figure,  like  the 
fauna  and  llora  of  a  lost  world  preserved  in  the  succes 
sive  strata  of  the  earth's  crust.§  The  simpler  Poly- 
theism  standing , behind  the  Greek  epics  can,  in  great 
part,  be  deciphered,  and  the  several  streams  whose 
confluence  form  it,  traced  to  their  respective  Indo-Euro- 
pean, Pelasgic,  Hellenic,  Oriental,  and  Egyptian  foun- 
tain-heads. The  process  is  thus  one  of  increasing 
simplification.  Diversity  and  multiplicity  alike  tend  to 
disappear  as  historical  analysis  dissolves  the  tribal  and 


*  Welcker,  "  Griechische  Gotterlehre,"  vol.  i.  p.  129;  Blackie, 
"  Homer  and  the  Iliad,"  vol.  i.  p.  23. 

t  Herodotus,  lib.  ii.  53 ;  Plato,  "  De  Repub.,"  lib.  ii.  §§  18  ff., 
vol.  vi.  pp.  380  ff.  (Bekker) ;  Aristotle,  "  Metaphys.,"  lib.  xi.  8 ; 
Creuzer,  "  Symbolik.  und  Mythol.  der  Alten  Volker,"  i.  pp.  3  ff. 

\  Zeller,  "  Philosophic  der  Griechen,"  ii.  305  if.,  554  ff.  (ed. 
1846), iii.  299  (ed.  1865)  ;  Max  Muller,  "Lectures  on  the  Science 
of  Language,"  ii.  lect.  ix. 

§  Creuzer,  '*  Symbolik  und  Mythol.,"  iii.  pp.  64-67  ;  Welcker 
"  Griechis,  Gotterlehre,"  i.  pp.  5-8. 


28  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

temporal  accretions,  and  resolves  the  faith  of  the  early 
Greek  settlers  into  its  primal  elements. 

What  is  true  of  the  Greek  branch  of  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean mythology  is  also  true  of  the  Indian.  The  Vedic 
hymns  represent  a  much  earlier  phase  of  mythological 
development  than  the  Homeric  poems.*  If  we  may  use 
Schelling's  terms,t  changing  somewhat  their  sense,  we 
would  say,  the  Homeric  Polytheism  is  successive,  /.<?.,  its 
gods  have  each  a  history  and  a  place  in  a  definite  sys- 
tem ;  but  the  Vedic  Polytheism  is  simultaneous,  i.e.,  has 
no  developed  system^ — now  one  god,  now  another,  is 
supreme.§  The  simultaneous  is  much  more  primitive 
than  the  successive  stage.  There  has  been  time  to  create, 
not  to  systematize.  But  behind  the  Vedas  lies  a  still 
earlier  faith,  or  rather  a  series  of  earlier  faiths,  which 
can  be  determined  partly  from  the  hymns  themselves, 
and  partly  from  a  comparison  of  Vedic  deities  with 
those  of  other  Indo-European  peoples.  Indra  is  the 
supreme  Vedic  god,||  but  his  origin  cannot  be  placed 


*  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  v.  pp.  3,  4 ;  Miiller,  "  Chips  from  a 
German  Workshop,"  i.  p.  26. 

t  "Philosophie  der  Mythologie,"  i.  p.  120. 

X  Lassen,  "  Indis.  Alterthumskunde,"  i.  908. 

§  Miiller's  "Hist,  of  Ancient  Sans.  Lit.,"  p.  546.  Since  the 
above  was  written  I  liave  read  the  first  of  a  series  of  papers  entitled, 
"  Vedenstudien,"  in  De  Gids  for  June,  1871,  by  Mr.  P.  A.  S.  van 
Limburg  Brouwer.  The  writer  gives  a  fresh  and  interesting,  but 
I  think,  in  some  respects,  incorrect  interpretation  of  Vedic  Poly- 
theism. The  several  gods  are  personalized  natural  phenomena, 
but  God  the  power  in  nature  which  produces  them.  There  is 
apparent  plurality,  but  actual  unity. — De  Gids,  June,  pp.  395  ff . 

II  Of  course  only  comparatively  supreme.  See  former  reference 
to  Miiller,  and  also  Lassen,  "  Indis.  Alterthumsk.,"  i.  pp.  893-6955 
Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  v.  sec.  v. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  29 

earlier  than  the  immigration  into  India,*  where  he 
soon  thrust  the  older  and,  morally,  higher  Varuna  into 
the  background,!  as  Varuna  seems  at  a  still  earlier 
period  to  have  superseded  Dyaus.  Then,  many  gods 
known  to  the  Indian  are  unknown  to  the  other  Indo- 
Europeans,  and  can  only  be  regarded  as  additions  to  the 
primitive  faith  held  by  the  undivided  family.  But  cen- 
turies behind  the  Vedas  we  find  a  point  where  a  still 
earlier  phase  of  Indo-European  mythology  can  be  stud- 
ied— the  point  where  the  two  branches  that  had  grown 
longest  together,  parted  to  form  the  Indian  and  Iranian 
peoples,  and  to  develop  religions  almost  the  exact  antithe- 
sis of  each  other.l  Here  literary  documents  fail  us,  but 
comparative  philology  sheds  a  light  that  can  hardly  be 
called  dim.  By  this  light  we  can  perceive  that  there  are 
fewer  gods  than  in  the  Vedic  age,  but  more  than  had  ex- 
isted prior  to  the  departure  of  the  European  branches. § 
The  elaboration  and  increased  importance  of  the  worship, 
the  appearance  of  a  professional  priesthood,  the  rise  of 
new  gods  like  Soma-Haorrta,  Mitra-Mithra,  and  other 
things  indicative  of  growth  in  religious  doctrines  and 
rites,  can  be  discovered  from  a  comparison  of  the  names 
and  words  existing  at  this  period  with  those  common  to 
the  Indo-European  family  as  awhole,|l  while  the  absence 


*  Benfey,  "  Orient  und  Occident,"  i.  pp.48,  49,  note  275;  Muir's 
"  Sanskrit  Texts,"  V.  118. 

t  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  p.  116. 

t  Lassen,  "  Indis.  Alterthums.,"  p.  617;  Spiegel,  "Eranische 
Alterthumsk.,"  i.  489. 

§  Spiegel,  "  Eranische  Alterthumsk.,"  pp.  432  ff. 

II  Spiegel,  ut  S2ipra.  Some  excellent  materials  for  such  a  com- 
parison can  be  found  in  Fick's  "  Vergleich.  Worterb.  der  Indoger 
Sprachen,"  ii.  Wortschatz. 


30  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

of  gods  afterwards  well  known,  of  ceremonies  and  castes 
raised  at  a  later  period  to  prime  importance,  can  be 
ascertained  from  a  comparison  of  the  Iranic-Indian 
deities,  religious  terms  and  rites,  with  those  of  the 
Vedas.*  The  process  of  simplification  thus  continues ; 
the  younger  the  Polytheism  the  fewer  its  gods. 

But  behind  the  Homeric  poems,  and  the  Vedas,  and 
the  separation  of  the  Iranic-Indian  branches,  lies  the 
period  when  Celt  and  Teuton,  Anglo-Saxon  and  Indian, 
Greek  and  Roman,  Scandinavian  and  Iranian,  lived  to- 
gether, a  simple  single  people.  And  at  this  point  com- 
parison can  be  again  instituted.  The  germs  of  many 
subsequent  developments  in  arts  and  institutions  can 
here  be  discovered  ;  but  the  one  thing  sought,  mean- 
while, is,  What  can  be  determined  as  to  the  religious 
faith  then  held  1  The  points  of  radical  and  general 
agreement  are  few.  Resemblances  that  may  be  classed 
as  coincidences  evolved  in  the  course  of  subsequent  de- 
velopment, must,  of  course,  be  excluded.  Under  this 
head  many  of  the  points  comparative  mythology  seizes 
may  be  comprehended.  The  same  faculties  in  men  of 
the  same  race,  working  under  different  conditions  in- 
deed, but  with  kindred  materials,  could  hardly  fail  to 
produce  similar  results.  The  most  of  these  Myths  of 
the  Dawn  which  Max  Miiller  has  so  ingeniously  anal- 
yzed and  explained  \  t  gods  of  the  stormful  sky,  like  the 
German  Wodin  and  the  Indian  Rudra  ;  gods  of  the  sea, 
like  the  Indian  Varuna  in  his  later  phase,  and  the 
Greek  Poseidon  ;  gods  of  the  sun,  like  the  Indian  Sa- 

*  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  i.  pp.  289-295,  where  views  of  Dr 
Martin  Haug  bearing  on  this  point  are  stated, 
t  "  Science  of  Language/'  ii.  lect.  xi. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  3 1 

vitri  and  Surya  and  the  Greek  Helios — are,  whatever 
their  mythical  resemblances,  developmental  coinci- 
dences, creations  of  the  Aryan  genius,  nationalized,  yet 
retaining  its  family  features.  Excluding,  then,  the  co- 
incidences natural  to  related  peoples  developing  the 
same  germs,  we  find  two  points  of  radical  and  general 
agreement — the  proper  name  of  one  God,  and  the  term 
expressive  of  the  idea  of  God  in  general.  The  name  is 
the  Sanskrit  Dyaus^  the  Greek  Zeiis^  the  Latin  jFii  in 
Jupiter,  the  Gothic  Tins,  the  Anglo-Saxon  Tiw,  the 
Scandinavian  Tyr,  the  old  German  Ziu  or  Zio.  On 
this  point  scholars  are  agreed.  Sanskritists  like  Dr. 
Muir*  and  Professors  Muller,t  Aufrecht,1:  and  Lassen,§ 
Greek  scholars  like  Curtius,||  and  Welcker,1[  German 
like  Jacob  Grimm,**  and  Celtic  like  M.  Adolphe  Pic- 
tetjtt  unite  in  tracing  the  cognates  back  to  a  common 
root,  and,  therefore,  to  a  primitive  name.  A  name  for 
God  had  thus  been  formed  before  the  dispersion.  It 
remained  the  name,  too,  of  the  Supreme  Deity  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans.  A  distinguished  Sanskritist  sup- 
poses Dyaus  to  have  been  before  the  rise  of  Indra  the 
highest  God  of  the  Indian,  as  well  as  of  the  other  Indo- 
European  s,$1:  and  his  supremacy  may  have  extended  into 

*  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  vol.  v.  p.  33. 

t  "  Science  of  Language,"  ii.  pp.  425  ff. 

X  Bunsen's  "  Christianity  and  Mankind,"  vol.  iii.  p.  78. 

§  "Indis.  Alterthumsk.,"  i.  891. 

II   "GrundzUge  der  Griech.  Etymol.,"  p.  222  (3d  ed.). 

1  "Griech.  Gotterlehre,"  vol.i.  pp.  131  f. 

**  "Deut.  Mythol,"  vol.  i.  p.  175. 

tt  *'  Les  Origines  Indo-Europeennes,"  vol.  ii.  pp.  663  ff . 

XX  Benfey,  "  Orient  und  Occident,"  vol.  i.  pp.  48,  49,  note ; 
Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  v.  pp.  118,  119,  where  the  greater  part  of 
Benfey's  note  is  translated,  and  the  similar  views  of  M.  Michel 
Breal  stated. 


32  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

the  period  of  the  Indian  and  Iranian  unity.*  The  German 
scholar  most  distinguished  for  research  in  the  mythology 
of  his  own  land,  thought  he  had  discovered  traces  of  the 
original  supremacy  of  Tius  or  Zio  among  the  Teutonic 
tribes  ;t  and  a  brilliant  philologist  has  generalized  these 
facts  and  opinions,  and  argued  that  Jupiter  was  the  Su- 
preme Indo-European  God4 

Perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  argue  that  the  general 
eminence  and  prevalence  of  this  name  proves  the  su- 
premacy of  the  God  it  designated.  Two  inferences,  how- 
ever, may  be  meanwhile  allowed — (i)  that  the  word  in 
its  primitive  form  was  the  name  of  a  deity,  (2)  that  the 
deity  it  denoted  was  acknowledged  and  worshipped  by 
the  Indo-European  family  as  a  whole.  Let  us  turn, 
before  attempting  any  more  definite  deduction,  to  the 
term  expressing  the  idea  of  God  in  general.  This  term 
is  in  Sanskrit  deva^  in  Zend  daeva^  in  Greek  ^£o?,  (.?),  § 

*  Spiegel,  "Eranische  Alterthumsk.,"  p.  436. 

t  Grimm,  "  Deut.  Mythol.,"  vol.  i.  pp.  77  ff. 

X    Miiller,  "  Science  of  Language,"  ii.  lect.  x. 

§  Skt,  deva,  Zend,  dacva,  Pers.,  dew,  Lat.,  deus,  Lith.,  d^a-Sy 
Old  Prus ,  dehva-s,  Old  Ir.,  dia,  Gen.,  d€i,  Cym.,  dew,  Armor.,  dou€^ 
Corn.,  deti,  Old  Nor.,  tiva-r,  are  certainly  cognates,  but  there  is  by 
no  means  the  same  certainty  as  to  BtoQ.  The  current  of  philolog- 
ical opinion,  once  strongly  in  favor  of  identifying  its  root  with  that  of 
deva  and  dens,  seems  now  to  have  set  as  strongly  against  it.  Bopp 
(*'Compar  Gram.,"  i.  pp.  4  and  15),  Lassen  ("Indis.  Alter- 
thumsk,," i.  p.  755),  Grimm  ("  Deut.  Mythol.,"  i.  p.  176),  Welcker 
("Griech.  Gotterl.,"  i.  p.  131),  Pictet  {"  Les  Origines  Indo-Europ.," 
ii.  p.  653),  Max  Miiller  ("  Science  of  Lang.,"  ii.  pp.  405, 454),  make 
deva,  deus  and  Qt6q  cognates.  But  Curtius  {"  GrundzUge  der 
Griech.  Etymol.,"  pp.  222,  466—473),  G.  BUhler  ('.'Orient  und 
Occident"!,  pp.  508  ff.),  Mr.  Peile  ("Introduct.  to  Greek  Ety- 
mol."), Fick  ("  Vergleich.  Worterbuch,"  pp.  96,  36S),  hold  (9ed<:  to 
have  no  connection  with  deva-deus.     Their  objections  appear  to  me 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  33 

in  Latin  deus^  in  I^ithuanian  deva-s,  old  Prussian  deiwa-s^ 
old  Irish  dia.  The  very  existence  of  such  a  term  is 
remarkable.*  It  indicates  that  the  united  Indo-Euro- 
peans  had  advanced  so  far  in  religious  thought  as  both 
to  form  and  formulate  a  conception  of  God.  Names  may- 
express  perceptions  of  sense  or  presentations  of  imagin- 
ation^  but  general  terms  imply  more  or  less  practised 
powers  of  comparison  and  judgment,  abstraction  and 
generalization.  But  why  had  the  general  term  come 
into  use  ?  In  the  sphere  of  theological  thought,  if  the 
theology  be  an  absolute  Monotheism,  denominative  and 
appellative  will  be  identical.f     The  Hebrews,  indeed, 

to  be  valid.  The  Greek  Q  and  the  Latin  d  do  not  correspond. 
Curtius  is  uncertain  as  to  the  etymology  of  Qtoq,  but  supposes  it 
may  be  from  a  root  ^ecr,  whence  dea-ad-juevoi,  which  he  had  con- 
nected in  his  first  and  second  editions  with  the  Latin  festiis^  fesiunty 
festivusy  but  not  in  his  third,  doubts  having  been  started  by  the  ob- 
jections of  Corssen  and  Pott  as  to  the  correctness  of  his  earlier 
view.  Fick  derives  it  from  a  word  dhaya,  from  a  root  dki,  to 
shine,  to  look,  to  be  devout  ("Vergleich.  Worterb.,"  pp.  368, 
102).  If  the  latter  etymology  be  correct  the  word  coincides 
in  meaning  with  deva-deus.  Then  there  is  a  significant  and  appro- 
priate progress  in  the  meaning  of  the  word.  The  primary  sense  of 
this  root  is  to  shine  {scheinen) ;  then  to  look  at,  contemplate 
{schauen)  what  shines  ;  then  finally,  what  results  from  the  contem- 
plation, to  be  devout  {anddchtzgsein).  The  difference  of  root  thus 
only  leads  back  to  identity  of  meaning,  while  it  helps  to  show  how 
the  contemplator  became  the  worshipper. 

*  Max  Muller,  "  Hist.  Ancient  Sans.  Lit.,*  p.  527.  "  Words  like 
deva  for  '  God '  mark  more  than  a  secondary  stage  in  the  grammar 
of  the  Aryan  religion." 

'  t  The  Hebrew  prophets  knew  the  power  of  a  single  name. 
Zechariah  (xiv.  9)  says  of  the  time  when  the  knowledge  of  the 
true  God  shall  be  universal,  "  In  that  day  shall  there  be  one  Lord, 
and  His  Name  one,"  while  nothing  was  more  characteristic  of 
Polytheism  than  gods  like  Kidwaoq  7ioXv6wfioc„  or  'Ifff?  fivpi6vv/xog. 

3 


34 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


had  a  specific  name,  Jahveh,  and  a  general  term,  Elohim. 
But  the  first,  whatever  may  be  said  as  to  its  meaning, 
was  introduced  b'^^cause  of  the  growing  latitude  in  the 
use  of  the  second.  In  Christian  countries,  again,  where 
the  very  idea  of  God  is  exclusive,  denominative  and  ap- 
pellative tend  to  coalesce.  We  no  longer  distinguish 
between  Jahveh  and  God ;  to  us  they  are  one  and  the 
same. 

The  formation  of  a  term  to  express  God  in  general 
seems  possible  in  one  of  two  ways — either  by  the  grad- 
ual extension  of  a  name  to  various  objects  of  the  same 
nature  as  the  one  first  designated,  or  by  the  creation 
of  a  new  word  to  express  the  new  conception.  Either 
explanation  implies,  so  far  as  concerns  our  present 
subject,  a  growing  Polytheism,  and  various  things 
indicate  that  gods  had  begun  to  multiply  before  the 
dispersion. 

Perhaps  it  is  perilous  to  conjecture  as  to  the  order 
Indo-European  thought  and  language  here  followed. 
But  there  are  some  significant  facts.  The  general  term, 
even  without  the  Greek  ^£o<r,  has  a  wider  prevalence 
than  the  proper  name.  The  Celts  must  have  been  the 
first,  or  among  the  first,  to  leave  the  common  home,  but 
the  several  Celtic  dialects,  Irish,  Cymric,  Armorican, 
Cornish,  have  the  cognates  of  deva^  but  not  of  dyaus* 
It  seems  an  almost  allowable  inference  that  the  Indo- 
Europeans  had  not  begun  to  distinguish  between  the 
individual  and  the  general,  God  and  gods,  when  the 
earliest  departures  occurred.  Then  the  Lithuanian  has 
deva-s^  old  Prussian  has  deiwa-s^  but  neither  has  pre- 
served the  proper  name.     That  deva  had  been  undergo- 

*  Piotet,  '•  Les  Origines  Indo-Europ./'  vol.  ii.  pp,  653,  663. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  35 

ing  a  process  of  deterioration  in  very  early  times  is  also 
evident  from  its  complete  change  of  meaning  in  Zend, 
where  daeva  is  no  longer  God,  but  demon.  This  is  all 
the  more  significant  as  the  Iranians  are  representatives 
of  an  Indo-European  monotheistic  tendency,  and  their 
repudiation  of  the  deity  of  the  daevas  may  be  inter- 
preted as  their  protest  against  the  growing  Polytheism. 
If,  then,  these  facts  may  be  held  to  indicate  the  exten- 
sion of  an  individual  name  so  as  to  embrace  a  genus, 
the  individual  must  have  formed  the  starting-point. 
And  if  the  inter-relations  of  dyaiis  and  deva  be  studied, 
whatever  the  order  of  their  application  to  the  Divine 
Being,  this  aboriginal  individualism  becomes  apparent. 
They  spring  from  the  same  root — are  branches  of  a  com- 
mon stem.*  The  unity  of  root  indicates  unity  of 
thought.  If  Dyaus  was  first,  then  a  deva  was  a  being 
who  had  the  nature  of  Dyaus.,  Dyaus  was  deva.,  Zzb^  6 
0Uq.  The  qualities  perceived  in  him  were  the  qual- 
ities conceived  as  constitutive  and  distinctive  of  a  god. 
If  deva  was  first,  then  Dyaus  was  the  de^fa  par  excellence, 
the  being  to  whom  the  qualities  held  to  be  divine  be- 
longed.  Inquiry  as  to  the  order  in  which  the  words 
were  applied  to  God  may  be  useless  enough,  but  their 
common  root  seems  to  indicate  that  the  primitive 
Indo-European  mind  had  conceived  Dyaus  and  deva  as 
ultimately  identical ;  just  as  the  Hebrew — though  here 

*  The  inter-relations  of  the  words  and  their  relation  to  the  com, 
mon  root,  dt,  to  shine,  may  be  studied  as  exhibited  in  Fick,  "  Ver- 
gleich.  Worterbuch."  pp.  93-96,  and  Max  Miiller,  "  Science  of 
Language,"  ii.  pp.  449  ff.  Dyaus  seems  to  have  as  a  word  a 
simpler  and  more  rudimentary  structure  than  deva^  but  simplicity  of 
Structure  may  not  always  be  evidence  of  priority  of  use  in  a  given 
sense. 


36  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

the  verbal  does  not  indicate  the  mental  connection — 
identified  in  his  ultimate  thinking  Jahveh  and  Elohim.* 
The  radical  connection  thus  existing  between  the 
words  may  be  held  as  an  evidence  that  a  radical  con- 
nection existed  in  the  Indo-European  mind  between  the 
idea  of  God  and  a  specific  God.  However  this  connec- 
tion is  explained: — whether  Dyaus  or  deva^  or  neither,  but 
a  thought  anterior  to  both,  is  made  the  parent  conception 
— the  result  is  the  same,  a  Theism  which  we  may  term 
individualistic.  But  now  the  question  rises,  What 
thought  lay  at  the  root  of  both  words  t  The  common 
root,  div^  means,  as  is  well  known,  to  beam,  to  shine  ; 
hence  Dyaus^  resplendent,  light-giving  Heaven ;  Deva, 
the  bright  or  shining  one.  And  so  the  conclusion  has 
often  been  drawn,  the  worship  of  the  primitive  Indo-Euro- 
peans  was  a  Nature-worship,t  an  adoration  of  the  ele- 
ments, of  the  phenomena  and  powers  of  Nature.  Con- 
firmation is  found  in  the  Nature-worship  so  evident  in 
the  Vedas,  so  visible  in  the  background  of  the  Greek 
mythology.  Then  again.  Heaven  is  married  to  Earth, 
Dyaus  to  Prithivi,  Zeus  to  Hera ;  and  this  marriage,  as 
a  French  author  has  told  us,  "forms  the  foundation  of  a 
hundred  mythologies."  %  But,  beginning  with  the  last, 
we  inquire.  Is  this  marriage  a  primitive  belief,  or  the 
creation  of  a  developed  mythology  ?  Certainly  there  is 
no  evidence  that  Earth  is  as  old  a  goddess  as  Heaven 
is  a  god — very  decided  evidence  to  the  contrary.  Dyaus 
was  known  to  almost  all  the  Indo-European  peoples, 

*  Ewald,  "Geschichte  des  Volks  Israel,"  vol.  i.  p.  138  (2d  ed). 

t  Renan,  "  Hist,  des  Langues  S^mit,"  p.  496  j  Bunsen,  "  God 
in  History,"  vol.  i.  p.  273. 

X  M.  Albert  Reville,  "  Essais  de  Critique  Religieuse,"  p.  383, 
quoted  in  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,'*  vol.  v.  p.  24. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  3^ 

but  each  people,  and  often  the  several  tribes  composing 
it,  had  a  different  name  for  the  Earth-goddess.  Prithivi 
was  known  to  the  Indians  alone.  Zeus,  in  his  several 
forms,  Pelasgian  and  Hellenic,  was  one  in  name  and  the 
ultimate  elements  of  his  character;  but  almost  every 
Greek  tribe  had  its  own  Earth-mother.  The  place  Hera 
occupies  in  the  Olympian  system  is  given  by  many  of 
the  local  worships  of  Greece  to  different  goddesses  ;  and 
Homer,  in  elevating  the  Hellenic  Hera  to  the  throne, 
has  to  reduce  the  old  Pelasgic  Dione  to  a  mere  "  lay- 
figure."*  The  German  Zio,  too,  has  no  consort,  the 
Hertha  of  Tacitus  being  altogether  a  local  goddess.f 
The  separation  of  the  sexes  implies  an  anthropomor- 
phism,:^  rudimentary,  perhaps,  but  real ;  and  the  mar- 
riage of  Heaven  and  Earth,  although  "  the  foundation 
of  a  hundred  mythologies,"  is  built  upon  the  conception 
that  the  life  in  both  is  akin  to,  indeed  the  parent  of, 
the  life  in  man.  Since  the  idea  of  difference  of  sex 
among  the  gods  must  precede  the  idea  of  marriage,  the 
latter  must  be  a  later  mythical  product  than  the  former, 
and,  as  names  like  Juno  and  Dione  witness,  the  bright 
divinity  of  Heaven  may  have  been  sexualized  and 
married  to  a  goddess  of  Heaven  before  the  mythical 
faculty  in  its  career  of  unconscious  creation  deified 
Earth   and   married   it   to   Heaven.§      Developmental 

*  Gladstone,  "  Juventus  Mundi,"  pp.  198,  238  £f.,  261  ff.,  264  £f. 

t  "  De  Germania,"  40 ;  Grimm,  "  Deut.  Mythol.,"  vol.  i.  230. 

X  Creuzer,  "  Symbolik  und  Mythol.,"  vol  i.  p.  24. 

§  Even  Demeter  may  have  been  originally  no  earth  goddess, 
but  Dyava  Matar,  the  Dawn,  corresponding  to  Dyaushpitar,  the 
sky.  So  M.  Muller,  "  Lectures,  Science  of  Lang.,"  ii.  p.  517.  The 
marriage  of  Heaven  and  Earth  is  too  artificial  to  be  a  very  primi- 
tive conception. 


38  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

coincidence  can  explain  the  uniformity  of  the  association, 
but  no  theory  which  assumes  it  as  the  common  starting- 
point  of  the  Indo-European  mythologies  can  explain 
the  general  preservation  of  the  name  in  the  one  case 
and  the  universal  loss  of  it  in  the  other. 

But  now  we  come  back  to  the  Nature-worship  theory, 
and  ask,  What  does  such  a  worship  mean  ?  The  Nature 
is  now  limited — excludes  Earth.  The  worshippers 
turned  to  heaven.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  because 
they  named  God  Heaven,  they  thought  Heaven  God. 
It  is  perhaps,  no  longer  possible  to  us  to  person- 
alize Heaven  but  it  might  have  been  as  impossible 
to  the  primitive  Indo-European  to  conceive  it  as 
impersonal.  The  belief  difficult  to  the  philosophic 
man  is  easy  to  the  imaginative  child.  The  most  natural 
thought  to  a  child-like  mind  is,  as  every  natural  historian 
of  religion  witnesses,  that  Nature  is  animated — acts  by 
virtue  of  an  immanent  life.  The  Indo-European  placed 
the  seat  of  this  life  in  Heaven,  worshipped  no  fetich  or 
idol,  but  the  bright  resplendent  Dyaus.  Heaven  was  to 
him  living — a  being  capable  of  feeling  and  exercising 
influence,  to  whom  he  prayed  and  offered  sacrifices. 
That  primitive  man  knew  what  obedience  was,  strove  to 
shape  his  life  in  such  a  fashion  as  Heaven  might  approve, 
termed  the  being  he  worshipped  up  there  Bhaga,  the 
Distributor  or  the  Adorable.*  He  had  not  learned  to 
localize  the  deity  upon  earth,  and  hence  had  no  temple 

*  The  original  meaning  of  Bhaga  seems  uncertain.  Bopp 
("Compar.  Gram.,"  p.  1217,  note)  and  Pictet  ("LesOrigines  Indo- 
Europ.,"  ii.  654)  derive  it  from  a  root  signifying  to  worship,  to 
adore,  to  love ;  hence  Bhaga,  the  adorable  being.  But  Fick 
("  Vergleich.  Worterbuch,  p.  133)  derives  it  from  a  root  signifying 
to  distribute.     Hence  Bhaga,  the  Distributor  ("Zutheiler"). 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


39 


—to  fear  him,  and  hence  had  no  priest.*  The  home, 
or  the  meadow,  or  the  shadow  of  a  giant  oak,  like  that 
which  stood  in  old  Dodona,  or  those  under  whose  spread- 
ing branches  the  Germans  of  Tacitus  gathered  to  wor- 
ship the  invisible  Presence,t  was  the  temple,  and  the 
patriarch  of  the  family  was  the  priest.  That  worship 
may  be  termed  a  Nature-worship,  because  the  one  word 
was  the  name  of  Heaven  and  of  God,  but  Nature  is  here 
only  a  synonym  for  God.  The  Nature  was  living,  and 
the  life  in  it  was  to  our  primitive  man  divine.  Man 
had  not  learned  to  dualize  his  own  being,  nor  the  great 
being  that  stood  around  and  above  his  own.  A  stranger 
to  the  philosophic  thought  that  divides  man  into  body 
and  spirit,  and  the  universe  into  nature  and  God,  he 
realized  in  consciousness  the  unity  of  his  own  personal 
being,  and  imagined  a  like  unity  in  the  light  and  life- 
giving  Dyaus.  The  glory  of  the  blue  and  brooding 
heaven  was  the  glory  of  the  immanent  God. 

This  primitive  worship  is  also  sometimes  termed  a 
personification  of  natural  forces  and  objects.  It  de- 
pends very  much  on  what  personification  means  whether 
the  explanation  be  true  or  false.  Our  personification  is 
a  conscious  act — the  investing  material  things  with  the 
character  and  attributes  of  living  beings.  But  in  no  re- 
spect whatever  was  primitive  worship  personification  in 
this  sense.  The  imagination  was  not  consciously  crea- 
tive. There  was  no  intentional  investiture  of  natural 
objects  with  divine  powers.  That,  indeed,  would  have 
implied  cultured  thought  and  developed  belief.  Per- 
sonification involves  the  idea  of  person.      If   man  per- 

*  Pictet,  "  Les  Origines  Indo-Europ.,"  vol  ii.  p.  690. 
t  "  De  Germania,"  9;  Welcker,  "Griech,  Gotterlehre,"  vol.  i.  p. 
202. 


40 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD, 


sonifies  a  natural  object  as  a  god,  he  must  have  the 
idea  of  God.  A  strict  Naturalism,  without  belief  in  in- 
visible powers,  cannot  personify — can  create  a  fetich  as 
little  as  a  god.  Hence  Nature  personified  can  only 
mean  Nature  conceived  as  living,  as  vital  with  creative 
and  i^reservative  powers.  To  worship  Nature,  or  natu- 
ral elements  and  objects  thus  conceived,  is  to  worship 
neither  the  Nature  of  material  forces  and  laws  known  to 
science,  nor  the  Nature  of  imaginary  voices  and  shapes 
known  to  poetry,  but  the  Nature  known  to  the  primitive 
manchild  as  the  body  and  home  of  the  immanent  God. 

But  there  is  one  element  of  the  Indo-European  con- 
ception of  God  too  characteristic  to  be  overlooked — the 
element  of  Paternity.  He  was  conceived  as  Father — 
father  of  man.  The  Indians  called  him  Dyaushpitar. 
The  Greeks  invoked  Zeb  -ndrsp — could  so  little  forget  this 
essential  attribute  of  their  family  deity  that  they  trans- 
ferred it  to  the  great  Olympian,  Father  of  gods  and  men. 
The  Romans  blended  name  and  character  in  Jupiter. 
The  Germans,  though  they  displaced  the  ancient  Zio, 
did  not  forget  his  fatherhood,*  and  so  loved  the  thought 
of  a  father-god  f  as  to  make  the  stormful  Wodin  Alvater, 
This  is,  perhaps,  the  characteristic  which  most  distin- 
guishes the  Indo-European  from  the  Semitic  conception 
of  God — the  parent,  too,  of  all  other  differences. 
Neither  as  Monotheisms,  nor  as  Polytheisms,  do  the 
Semitic  religions  attribute  a  fatherly,  humane  character 
to  their  gods.  Even  the  Old  Testament  knows  only  an 
abstract  ideal  fatherhood,  which  the  Hebrews  as  a  na- 
tion realize,  but  the  Hebrew  as  a  man  almost  never  does. 
The  Semitic  God  dwells  in  inaccessible  light — an  awful, 

*  Grimm,  "Deut.  Mythol.,"  vol  i.  178. 
t  lb.,  pp.  20,  149  f. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  4I 

invisible  Presence,  before  which  man  must  stand  un^ 
covered,  trembling ;  but  the  Indo-European  God  is 
preeminently  accessible,  loves  familiar  intercourse,  is 
bound  to  man  by  manifold  ties  of  kinship.  The  majesty 
of  God  in  an  exalted  Monotheism,  like  the  Hebrew,  is 
sometimes  so  conceived  as  almost  to  annihilate  the  free 
agency  and  personal  being  of  man  ;  but  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean, as  a  rule,  so  conceives  his  Deity  as  to  allow  his 
own  freedom  of  action  and  personal  existence  full  scope. 
The  explanation  may,  perhaps,  be  here  found  of  the 
Hebrew  horror  at  death,  almost  hopeless  *'  going  down  to 
the  grave,"  the  often-asserted  and  often  denied  silence  of 
the  old  Testament  as  to  the  immortality  of  man.  So  much 
is  certain,  whether  the  Warburtonian  or  the  more  orthodox 
theory  be  held,  the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  occupies 
a  less  prominent  and  less  essential  place  in  the  religion 
of  the  Old  Testament  than  in  the  Indo-European  re- 
ligions in  general.*  The  belief  in  immortality  was  be- 
fore Christ  more  explicit  and  more  general  among  the 
Greeks  than  among  the  Jews.  The  conception  of  God, 
in  the  one  case,  seems  to  have  almost  annihilated  the 
conception  of  man ;  but  in  the  other,  the  two  conceptions 
were  mutually  complimentary, — God  incomplete  with- 
out man,  man  without  God.  Then,  while  the  father  in 
the  Indo-European  religions  softens  the  god,  and  gives, 
on  the  whole,  a  sunny  and  cheerful  and,  sometimes, 
festive  character  to  the  worship,  the  god  in  the  Semitic 
annihilates  the  father,  and  gives  to  its  worship  a  gloomy, 
severe,  and  cruel  character,  which  does  not  indeed  be- 
long to  the  revealed  religion  of  the  Old  Testament,  but 
often  belongs  to  the  actual  religion  of  the  Jews.f     The 

*  Ewald,  "  Geschichte  des  Volks  Israel,"  vol.  ii.  172  ff. 
t  Kalisch,  "  Leviticus,"  vol.  i.  pp.  381 — 416. 


42  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

Indo-European  loves  the  gay  religious  festival,  the 
Semite  the  frequent  and  prolonged  fast.  The  Semitic 
Polytheisms  showed  very  early  their  fiercer  spirit  in  the 
place  they  gave  and  the  necessity  they  attached  to 
human  sacrifices  ;  but  the  Indo-European  religions,  al- 
though perhaps,  even  in  the  earliest  times,  not  alto- 
gether innocent  of  human  sacrifices, ''^  yet  entered  on 
their  more  dreadful  phase  only  after  they  had  fallen  un- 
der malign  influences,  home  or  foreign. f  The  contrast 
might  be  pursued  to  their  respective  priesthoods,  where, 
indeed,  exceptions  would  be  found,  but  only  defining 
and  confirming  the  rule.  These  characteristic  and 
fundamental  differences  in  feeling,  thought,  and  wor- 
ship can  be  traced  to  the  primary  differences  in  the 
conception  of  God.  The  one  class  of  religions  de- 
veloped themselves  from  the  idea  of  Divine  Fatherhood, 
but  the  other  class  from  the  idea  of  Divine  Sovereignty, 
severely  exercised  over  a  guilty  race.  The  subjective 
Semite  found  his  God  in  himself,  and  offered  a  worship 
such  as  would  have  been  acceptable  to  him  had  he  been 
Deity.  The  objective  Indo-European  found  his  God 
without  and  above  him,  and  rejoiced  in  a  religion  as  full 
of  light  and  gladness  as  the  resplendent  heaven. 

We  may  now  attempt  to  formulate  the  primitive  Indo- 
European  idea  of  God.  We  can  at  once  exclude  the 
fancy  that  it  was  a  fetich  or  an  idol-god,  such  as  the  sav- 

*  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  i.  pp.  355  ff.  Weber,  "  Ueber  Men- 
schenopfer  bei  den  Indern  der  Vedischen  Zeit.,"  Indis.  Streifen, 
pp.  54  ff. 

t  Pfleiderer  "Die  Religion,"  vol.  ii.  128,  ascribes  the  myth  of 
Kronos  devouring  his  own  children  to  Oriental,  /.^.  Semitic  in- 
fluence, Gladstone,  "  Address  on  the  Place  of  Ancient  Greece  in 
the  Providential  Order  of  the  World,"  pp.  35,  36. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  4^ 

ages  of  the  South  Sea  Islands  may  now  worship.  The 
God  of  our  fathers  was  no  ghost  of  a  deceased  ancestor 
seen  in  feverish  dreams.  They  stood  in  the  primeval 
home  in  the  highlands  of  North-western  Asia,  looked,  as 
Abraham  once  did,  at  the  resplendent  sun  flooding  the 
world  with  life  and  light,  at  the  deep,  broad,  blue 
heaven,  a  bosom  that  enfolded  earth,  bringing  the  rain 
that  fertilized  their  fields  and  fed  their  rivers,  and  the 
heat  that  ripened  their  corn,  at  the  glory  its  sunlight 
threw  upon  the  waking,  its  moonlight  upon  the  sleeping 
earth,  and  at  the  stars  that  "  globed  themselves  "  in  the 
same  boundless  heaven,  and  went  and  came  and  shone 
so  sweetly  on  man  and  beast,  and  they  called  that  far 
yet  near,  changing  but  unchangeable,  still  but  ever-mov- 
ing, bright  yet  unconsumed  and  unconsuming  Heaven, 
deva — God.  To  Indo-European  man,  Heaven  and  God 
were  one,  not  a  thing  but  a  person,  whose  Thou  stood 
over  against  his  /.  His  life  was  one,  the  life  above  him 
was  one  too.  Then,  that  life  was  generative,  productive, 
the  source  of  every  other  life,  and  so  to  express  his  full 
conception,  he  called  the  living  Heaven,  Diespiter, 
Dyaushpitar — Heaven-Father. 

The  primitive  form  of  the  Indo-European  idea  of  God, 
so  far  as  it  is  discoverable,  now  lies  before  us.  We 
must  now  see  what  light  the  form  can  throw  upon  the 
genesis  of  the  idea.  It  certainly  shows  the  theories 
before  examined  to  be  historically  untenable.  Terror, 
distempered  dreams,  fear  of  the  unknown  causes  of  the 
accidents  and  destructive  phenomena  of  nature,  the 
desire  to  propitiate  the  angry  ghosts  of  ancestors  de- 
ceased— none  of  these  could  have  produced  the  simple, 
sublime  faith  of  our  Indo-European  man-child.  The 
religion  whose   earliest  form  embodies  neither  terror 


44 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


nor  darkness,  but  a  spirit  glad  and  brilliant  like  the 
light  of  Heaven,  cannot  have  risen  out  of  the  ignorance 
and  fears  of  a  soul  hardly  human.  The  object  selected 
for  worship  was  the  sublimest  man  could  perceive,  and 
even  the  inquirer  most  inclined  to  deny  spiritual  and 
theistic  elements  to  the  first  religion,  must  concede  to 
its  Indo-European  form  rare  elevation  of  object  and 
sunniness  of  aspect,  and  to  the  men  who  held  it  a  force 
of  thought  and  strength  of  imagination  incompatible 
with  what  we  know  to  be  the  mental  and  moral  condition 
of  savages.  The  idea  formulated  in  Heaven-Father  was 
no  product  of  the  reasoning  or  reflective  consciousness, 
because  the  conclusions  of  the  one  and  the  creations  of 
the  other  are  abstract,  bodiless,  not  concrete,  embod- 
ied, living.  There  were  two  real  or  objective,  and  two 
ideal  or  subjective,  factors  in  the  genesis  of  the  idea. 
The  two  real  were  the  bright,  brooding  Heaven  and  its 
action  in  relation  to  Earth.  The  two  ideal  were  the 
conscience  and  the  imagination.  The  real  factors  stim- 
ulated the  action  of  the  ideal.  The  ideal  borrowed  the 
form  in  which  to  express  themselves  from  the  real. 
Conscience  knew  of  relation,  dependent  and  obligatory, 
to  Some  One.  Imagination  discovered  the  Some 
One  on  whom  the  individual  and  the  whole 
alike  depended  in  the  Heaven.  Neither  faculty  could 
be  satisfied  with  the  subjective,  each  was  driven  by  the 
law  of  its  own  constitution  to  seek  an  objective  reality. 
Conscience,  so  far  as  it  revealed  obligation,  revealed 
relation  to  a  being  higher  than  self.  Imagination,  when 
it  turned  its  eye  to  Heaven,  beheld  there  the  higher 
Being,  the  great  Soul  which  directed  the  varied  celestial 
movements,  and  created  the  multitudinous  terrestrial 
lives.     Without  the  conscience,  the  life  the  imagination 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  45 

saw  would  have  been  simply;  physical ;  without  the 
imagination,  the  relation  the  conscience  revealed  would 
have  been  purely  ideal — the  relation  of  a  thinker  to  his 
thought,  not  of  one  personal  being  to  another.  But  the 
being  given  by  the  one  faculty  and  the  relation  given 
by  the  other  coalesced  so  as  to  form  that  worship  of  the 
bright  Dyaus,  which  was  our  primitive  Indo-European 
religion. 

These,  then,  were  the  two  faculties  generative  of  the 
idea  of  God,  /.  <f.,  from  their  action  and  inter-action  the 
primitive  religion  sprang.  Of  course,  in  terming  these 
"  the  faculties  generative  of  the  idea  "  we  do  not  mean 
that  they  acted  alone.  No  faculty  can  be  isolated  in 
action,  whatever  it  may  be  as  an  object  of  thought. 
We  only  mean  that  these,  for  the  time  being  the 
governing  faculties  of  the  mind,  were  the  two  from 
whose  combined  instincts  and  actions  the  idea  of  God 
rose  into  form.  That  conscience  was  a  main  factor  of 
our  Indo-European  faith  is  evident,  setting  aside 
psychological  considerations,  from  that  faith  itself. 
More  moral  elements  can  be  found,  comparatively 
speaking,  in  its  earlier  than  in  its  later  forms.  The 
proofs  of  its  Naturalism,  as  of  its  Polytheism,  are 
derived  from  the  developed  national  religions,  not  from 
the  rudimentary  and  common  faith.  But  it  is  certain 
that  some  of  these  grew  from  a  [comparative]  Spiritual- 
ism into  an  almost  pure  Naturalism.  It  was  almost 
certainly  the  conflict  of  the  spiritual  and  sensuous  forms 
that  separated  the  Iranian  and  Indian  branches.*  In 
the  Rig  Veda  the  younger  and   more  physical  faith  is 


*  Professor  Roth,   "  Zeitschrift  der  Deut.  Morgenland.     Gesell 
schaft,"  vol.  V.  pp.  76  £f. 


46  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

seen  superseding  the  older  and  more  moral.'*  Varuna 
has  a  "  moral  elevation  and  sanctity  "  of  character  "  far 
surpassing  that  attributed  to  any  other  Vedic  deity."t 
Yet  he  is  seen  undergoing  a  twofold  process,  one  of 
supersession  and  another  of  deterioration,  until,  in  the 
later  Vedic  hymns,  the  God,  in  his  older  and  nobler 
character,  almost  entirely  disappears.  The  God  that 
supersedes  him  is  Indra,  a  splendid  physical  figure,  no 
doubt,  "  borne  on  a  shining  golden  car  with  a  thousand 
supports,"  drawn  by  "  tawny  steeds  "  "  with  flowing 
golden  manes,"  hurling  his  thunderbolts,  drinking  the 
soma-juice,  slayer  of  Vritra,  but  the  moral  elements  in 
his  character  are  far  fewer  and  inferior  to  those  in 
Varuna's.  %  Behind  the  latter  the  still  more  ancient 
Dyaus  stands,  and  his  character,  though  shadowy  and 
fragmentary,  reveals  moral  elements  transcending  the 
conception  of  a  mere  physical  deity.  In  the  religion 
behind  the  Vedas  and  Avesta  we  see  the  point  where 
mind  becomes  conscious  of  a  dualism  in  its  faith,  and 
by  exclusion  of  the  moral  element,  the  Naturalism  of 
the  first  is  developed,  by  exclusion  of  the  physical,  the 
Spiritualism  of  the  second.  But  behind  this  point 
stands  the  ancient  and  common  Indo-European  faith  in 
which  the  two  elements  existed  together  as  matter  and 
form,  spirit  and  letter,  not  in  a  consciously  apprehended 
dualism,  but  in  a  realized  unity.     In  this  oldest  religion 


*  lb.  Also  Muir,  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  vol.  v.  pp.  116-118,  where 
an  epitome  is  given  of  Roth's  views. 

t  Muir,  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  p.  66. 

X  See  the  admirable  and  exhaustive  exhibition  of  Indra  in  the 
fifth  volume  of  Dr.  Muir's  *'  Sanskrit  Texts,"  sec.  v. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  ^y 

worship,*  sacrifice,!  prayer,$  and  such  rudimentary  ideas 
as  faith,  piety,§  holiness,  |I  can  be  discovered,  and  their 
existence  implies,  as  the  creative  faculty,  a  moral  sense. 
The  acquired  conscience  of  Utilitarianism  cannot  ex- 
plain these  acts  and  ideas,  because  they  rise  with  the 
Indo-European  people,  create,  are  not  created  by,  its 
religious  experience,  are  deteriorated  rather  than  im- 
proved by  certain  later  developments.  The  oldest  is 
here  the  highest.  The  physical  eclipses  the  moral,  the 
moral  does  not  rise  by  hardly  perceptible  gradations 
from  the  physical.  We  require,  therefore,  a  faculty 
generative  of  these  primary  religious  acts  and  ideas,  and 
we  have  it  in  conscience.  Consciousness  and  conscience 
rose  together.  Mind  conscious  of  self  was  also  mind 
conscious  of  obligation.  The  "  I  am "  and  the  "  I 
ought  "  were  twins,  born  at  the  same  moment.  But  to 
be  conscious  of  obligation  was  to  be  conscious  of 
relation,  and  so  in  one  and  the  same  act  mind  was 
conscious  of  a  self  who  owed  obedience,  and  a  Not- 
Self  to  whom  the  obedience  was  due. 

The  idea  of  God  was  thus  given  in  the  very  same  act 
as  the  idea  of  self  ;  neither  could  be  said  to  precede  the 
other.  Mind  could  be  mind  as  little  without  the  con- 
sciousness of  God  as  without  the  consciousness  of  self. 
Certain  philosophies  may  have  dissolved  the  first  idea 
as  certain  others  may  have  dissolved  the  second,  but 
each  idea  is  alike  instinctive,  rises  by  nature,  can  be 
suppressed  only  by  art.  But  we  must  try  now  to  define 
the  nature  of  this  T.pwz-q  dsoo  Iwoia.  Our  ordinary  terms 
are  so  associated  with  modern  ideas  as  to  be  inapplica- 

*  Pictet,  "  Les  Origines  Indo-Europ.,"  vol.  ii.  690. 

t  lb.,  p.  702.       X  lb.,  p.  699.      §  lb.,  p.  696.       II  lb.,  p.  694. 


48  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD, 

ble  to  this  aboriginal  idea.  We  cannot  call  it  a  Mono- 
theism, for,  as  Preller  rightly  remarks,  "  Monotheism 
rests  essentially  on  abstraction  and  negation,"  *  while 
here  the  very  idea  of  other  gods  has  not  as  yet  been 
formed.  Schelling  terms  the  primitive  faith  relativer 
Monotheismus^\  but  this  phrase  is  hardly  descriptive  and 
definite  enough,  is  also,  perhaps,  properly  denotive  of 
a  Monotheism  which  admits  a  number  of  divine  beings 
as  intermediate  between  God  and  the  world,  as  con- 
trasted with  an  absolute  Monotheism,  which  draws  the 
line  of  a  sharp  and  rigid  dualism.  Max  Miiller  uses  the 
term  Henotheism.X  This  is  better  ;  but  we  would  prefer, 
as  more  intelligible,  the  terms,  individual  Theism,  or 
simply  Individualism.  It  is  a  Theism,  as  opposed  to 
Naturalism,  in  so  far  as  it  makes  Dyaus  conscious, 
creative,  moral*.  It  is  an  individual  Theism,  as  opposed 
to  an  abstract  and  exclusive  Monotheism,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  a  Polytheism,  on  the  other,  in  so  far  as  it 
affirms  God  is,  but  neither  that  there  are  or  are  not 
other  gods.  These,  indeed,  were  questions  the  primi- 
tive mind  could  neither  raise  nor  answer.  Centuries  of 
unconscious  creation  were  needed  to  raise  the  one — 
centuries  of  conscious  reflection  to  raise  the  other. 

II. 

We  come  now  to  the  development  of  the  idea.  It 
was  in  its  earliest  form  essentially  capable  of  evolution. 
A  pure  Monotheism  or  an  actual  Polytheism  is,  each 
in  its  own  way,  an  ultimate  form,  which  may  be  devel- 

*  Quoted  in  Welcker,  "  Griech.  Gotterlehre,"  iii.  p.  xiv. 

t  "  Philos.  der  MythoL,"  i.  126. 

X  "Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,"  vol.  i.  p.  355. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  45 

oped  as  to  its  accidents,  but  not  as  to  its  essence. 
Revolution  must  precede  further  evolution.  But  the 
primitive  idea  was  germinal,  held  in  it  many  evolutional 
possibilities,  was  a  point  from  which  the  human  mind 
could  start,  but  at  which  it  could  not  permanently  stand. 
Had  reason  been  cultivated,  or  had  an  instinct  antici- 
pated its  action,  the  evolution  might  have  been  to  an 
abstract  and  exclusive  Monotheism  ;  but  the  primitive 
Indo-European  had  neither  a  cultured  reason  nor  a 
monotheistic  instinct.  Of  the  faculties  generative  of 
the  idea,  conscience  was  unifying,  demanded  an  individ- 
ual deity,  demanded  no  more  ;  but  the  imagination  was 
multiplicative.  Then,  the  very  conception  of  a  life  im- 
manent in  the  luminous  and  impregnating  Heaven 
strengthened  the  multiplying  as  opposed  to  the  unify- 
ing tendency.  The  variety  and  contrasts  of  Nature 
helped  the  imagination  to  individualize  the  parts.  A 
different  spirit  seems  to  animate  the  calm,  smiling 
Heaven  from  what  animates  a  heaven  tempestuous  and 
thundering.  Night  seems  distinct  from  day — the  bril- 
liant, beneficent  spirit  of  the  one  from  the  revealing  yet 
enfolding,  distant  yet  near,  spirit  of  the  other.  So  the 
imagination,  which  had  discerned  and  localized  the  God 
conscience  demanded,  pursued  its  creative  career,  not 
now  in  obedience  to  the  moral  faculty,  but  only  to  its 
own  impulses.  And  so  its  creations  graduated  to  Nat- 
uralism, became  more  physical,  less  moral  —  simple 
transcripts  of  the  phenomena  and  aspects  of  Nature. 
The  Indian  Varuna,  the  Greek  Uranos,  marks  the  first 
step  of  the  evolution  to  Naturalism.  The  conceptions 
so  agree  as  to  warrant  the  inference  that  the  deification 
had  begun  before  the  Greeks  left  for  Europe,  but  so 
differ  as  to  imply  that  the  creation  was  recent,  the  char- 

% 


50 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


acter  of  the  new  deity  still  fluid,  unfixed.*  He  repre- 
sented the  covering,  enfolding  Night-Heaven,  as  op- 
posed to  the  luminous  Dyaus.  The  two  had  seemed  so 
different  as  to  suggest  distinct  individuality  j  two  aspects 
of  the  same  object  were  apprehended  as  two  beings. 
When  next  comparison  can  be  instituted,  a  new  deity 
stands  beside  Varuna — Mitra,  the  God  of  Light.f  The 
creation  of  the  one  had  necessitated  the  creation  of  the 
other ;  deified  Night  was  incomplete  without  deified 
Day.  But  though  the  conceptions  graduate  to  Natural- 
ism, they  are  not  yet  purely  natural — creations,  indeed, 
of  the  imagination,  but  of  it  as  still  influenced  by  the 
moral  faculty. 

But  the  conscience  also  acted  indirectly  on  what  we 
may  term,  after  Schelling,  the  theogonic  process.^:  In 
prompting  to  worship,  it  furnished  objects  that  could  be 
personalized.  The  earliest  worship  was,  indeed,  simple, 
but  its  tendency  was  to  multiply  acts  and  ceremonies. 
The  first  priests  were  the  fathers  of  the  family ;  but  as 
life  became  more  toilsome  and  occupied,  the  father  was 
fain  to  delegate  his  priestly  office  to  another.  The 
sense  of  faults  and  sins,  too,  began  to  affect  the  wor- 
shipper, to  force  him  to  distinguish  between  secular  and 
sacred,  until  he  came  to  think  that  the  man  acceptable 
to  God  must  be  a  man  divorced  from  secular  and  de- 
voted to  sacred  things.  Hence,  a  professional  priest- 
hood was  formed,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  forms  of 
worship  increased.  Each  reacted  on  the  other.  The 
worship  became  more  elaborate  as  the  priesthood  be- 
came more  professional,  and  the  ritual  the  priest  devel- 

♦  Muir,  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  vol.  v.  p.  76. 

t  Spiegel,  "  Eranische  Alterthumsk.,"  p.  434. 

%  "  Philos.  der  Mythol.,"  vol.  i.  pp.  193,  204. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  ^j 

loped  the  imagination  idealized — the  form  became  to  it 
the  matter  of  religion.  What  could  reveal  deity  was 
deified.  What  made  the  worshipper  accepted,  forgiven, 
was  idealized  into  the  accepter,  the  forgiver.  And 
hence  sacerdotal  deities  were  evolved  alongside  the 
natural.  The  same  period  that  witnessed  the  creation 
of  Varuna-Mitra  witnessed  also  the  creation  of  Soma. 
The  juice  of  the  plant  used  in  sacrifice  to  God  became 
itself  a  god,  just  as  to  a  certain  section  of  Christians 
the  symbol  of  Christ's  sacrifice  has  become  the  sacrifice 
itself. 

The  theogonic  process  thus  operates  at  the  beginning 
in  two  distinct  spheres — the  natural  and  sacerdotal. 
Its  action  is  influenced  in  the  one  by  geographical  con- 
ditions, in  the  other  by  social  and  political.  The 
natural  objects  deified  are  borrowed  from  the  Nature 
presented  to  the  imagination.  It  was  only  after  the 
Indians  had  descended  into  the  hot  plains  of  India, 
lived  under  its  bright,  burning  sky,  wearied  and  prayed 
for  softening  and  cooling  rain,  that  Indra  was  created. 
It  was  up  among  the  mountains  of  Kashmir,  where 
frequent  tempests  rage,  that  the  blustering  and  furious 
Rudra  took  his  rise.*  The  Germans,  wandering  under 
the  cloudy  and  tempestuous  skies  of  the  north,  forgot 
the  bright  face  of  Zio,  and  worshipped  the  stormful 
Wodin  and  the  thundering  Thor ;  but  the  Greeks,  un- 
der their  sunny  sky,  and  in  their  land  of  many  moun- 
tains and  rivers  and  islands,  washed  by  the  waves  of  the 
sparkling  ^gean,  remembered  Zeus,  and  called  around 
him  innumerable  bright  deities  of  mountain  and  river 
and  sea.     Geographical  conditions  thus  very  much  de- 

*  Weber,  quoted  in  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  vol.  iv.  p.  335. 


52  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

termined  the  character  and  number  of  the  natural 
deities.  A  land  of  severe  climate  and  uniform  scenery 
could  not  have  the  wealth  of  mythical  gods  and  legends 
natural  to  a  beautiful  and  varied  land  like  Greece.  The 
Vedic  natural  deities  but  embody  the  splendor  of  In- 
dian nature ;  but  the  rough,  yet  kindly,  German  gods 
reproduce  the  boisterous,  yet  warm-hearted,  Fatherland. 
Political  and  social  conditions  in  India  favored  the 
growth  there  of  a  sacerdotal  caste,  and  that  was  the 
Indo-European  land  preeminent  in  sacerdotal  deities. 
The  struggles,  conquests,  and  changes  that  issued  in  the 
rise  of  the  Brahmans  do  not  concern  us  meanwhile,  but 
their  rise  indicates  profound  religious  convictions.  It 
dates  from  the  Iranian  and  Indian  unity,  and  many 
things  prove  that  to  have  been  a  period  of  extraordinary 
spiritual  fervor  and  growth.  The  inner  and  moral 
forces  then  active  the  Iranians  carried  away,  but  the 
Indians  the  outer  and  formal.  The  genius  of  each  peo- 
ple took  thus  a  different  direction — the  one  tended  to 
develop  the  spiritual,  the  other  the  external,  side  of  re- 
ligion. The  most  extreme  sacerdotalism  is  the  least 
spiritual.  It  changes  the  form  into  the  matter  of  re- 
ligion— augments  and  emphasizes  it.  Hence  from  the 
separation,  when  its  moral  spirit  departed  with  the 
Iranians,  the  sacerdotalism  of  India  increases.  The 
very  natural  deities  have  more  or  less  a  sacerdotal 
character.  Indra  loves  the  soma-juice,  which  he  "drinks 
like  a  thirsty  stag,"  is  thereby  exhilarated  and  propi- 
tiated.* Agni  is  the  sacrificial  fire  deified,  and  so  is 
the  mediator  between  gods  and  men,  "  the  priest  of  the 
gods,"  "commissioned  by  gods  and  men  to  maintain  their 

*  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  vol.  v.  pp.88  £f. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD.  ^^ 

mutual  communications."*  Brahmanaspati  is  an  "  im- 
personation of  the  power  of  devotion  "  "  a  deity  in  whom 
the  action  of  the  worshipper  upon  the  gods  is  personi- 
fied."f  He  is  sometimes  the  representative  of  Indra, 
sometimes  of  Agni,  the  idealizing  faculty  halting  un- 
certain as  it  were  between  a  new  creation  or  the  subli- 
mation of  an  old.t  The  imagination  which  found  so 
much  to  deify  in  the  sacerdotalism  of  India,  was  less 
successful  in  the  same  sphere  in  other  Indo-European 
countries.  Greeks  and  Germans,  Latins  and  Celts,  held 
the  instruments  of  worship  to  be  sacred  but  not  divine. 
Oaks  and  groves  were  believed  to  be  the  haunts  of 
deities,  sacrifices  were  thought  to  persuade  the  gods, 
certain  ceremonies  and  symbols  to  have  peculiar  sanc- 
tity, but  without  the  necessary  social  conditions  the  act 
of  deification  was  impossible. 

The  mythical  faculty  pursued  in  each  sphere  a  dif- 
ferent course — descended  in  the  one,  ascended  in  the 
other.  Thus  in  the  Rig  Veda,  where  Naturalism  stands 
in  its  purest  form,  we  have  as  the  background  and 
starting-point  two  conceptions — Heaven  as  luminous, 
Dyaus ;  then  as  immense,  boundless,  Aditi.§  The  dis- 
solution of  Aditi  into  the  Adityas  yields  a  number  of 
deities,  each  partly  natural,  partly  spiritual — as  the  first 
associated  with  the  greater  phenomena  of  Nature,  as  the 
second  representatives  of  functions  like  government,  or 
virtues  like  the  mercy  that  forgives.      Then  single  ob- 

*  lb.  pp.  199  £f. ;  Lassen,  "  Indis.  Alterthumsk.,'*  vol.  i.  p.  760. 

t  Professor  Roth,  quoted  in  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  vol.  v.  pp^ 
272  £f. 

I  Muir,  ib.,  p.  281. 

§  Professor  Roth,  "  Zeitschrift  der  Morgenland  Gesells.,"  voL 
vi.  pp.  68  fif. 


54  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

jects  are  deified,  like  the  sun  as  Surya  or  Savitri,  or  the 
dawn  like  Ushas,  or  the  storm  as  the  Maruts.  The 
process  goes  on  descending  till  rivers  like  the  Saras- 
vati  and  Yamuna,  and  mountains  like  the  Himalaya,  are 
deified.  But  the  theogonic  process  in  the  sacerdotal 
sphere  begins  with  the  soma-juice,  ascends  through 
Agni  and  Brahmanaspati,  till  it  culminates  in  Brahma, 
the  supreme  deity.  This  dijEference  in  the  order  of 
evolution  is  instructive.  The  first  shows  how  an  ex- 
alted idea  has  been  materialized  and  depraved,  the 
second  how  a  low  idea  can  be,  by  abstraction  and  ne- 
gation, raised  and  rarified  till  it  becomes  the  highest 
deity  of  speculation,  but  not  a  god  to  be  worshipped. 
The  living  god  which  the  process  of  degradation  ruins, 
the  process  of  elevation  cannot  restore. 

But  now,  while  this  double  theogonic  process  goes  on, 
exhausting  the  natural  and  sacerdotal  objects  it  has  to 
deify,  the  necessary  evolution  of  the  human  mind  leads 
to  another  theogonic  process,  also  double,  and  starting 
from  two  opposite  sides.  This  process,  as  it  affects  the 
gods,  is  anthropomorphism ;  as  it  affects  man,  apotheo- 
sis. The  first,  by  ascribing  human  forms  and  relations  to 
the  gods,  prepares  the  way  for  the  second,  the  deification 
of  man.  The  one  springs  from  the  worship,  the  other  from 
the  unconscious  poetry  of  a  people.  Every  god  who  is  the 
object  of  worship,  is  conceived,  more  or  less,  under  hu- 
man forms.  The  feelings,  relations,  and  acts  attributed 
to  him,  the  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  him  in 
prayer  and  sacrifice,  are  the  results  or  expressions  of  an 
anthropomorphic  conception.  Thus,  as  worship  becomes 
more  elaborate  and  important,  the  gods  become  more 
manlike.  Sacrifices  persuade  them,  as  gifts  persuade 
men.     The  soma-juice,  or  the  wine  of  the  libation,  ex- 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


55 


hilarates  gods  as  well  as  men.  They  are  pleased  with 
those  who  worship  them,  displeased  with  those  who  do 
not.  So  essential  is  this  anthropomorphic  conception 
to  worship,  that  the  pure  Monotheism  of  the  Hebrews 
could  not,  when  made  the  basis  of  an  actual  religion, 
dispense  with  it.  It  forms  the  foundation  of  every  suc- 
cessive Polytheism,  changes  the  character,  modifies  the 
history  and  relations,  of  every  deity,  natural  or  sacerdo- 
tal. When  the  anthropomorphic  process  is  well  advan- 
ced, apotheosis  begins.  Gods  have  been  changed  into 
the  similitude  of  men  ;  men  can  now  be  changed  into 
the  similitude  of  gods.  The  tendency  to  apotheosize 
was  always  strong  in  Indo-European  man.  Love  of  the 
fathers  has  ever  been  one  of  his  characteristics.  The 
heroic  age  lay  behind,  and  the  fathers  were  the  heroes. 
Indian  and  Teuton,  Greek  and  Latin,  alike  reverenced 
their  ancestors,  and  the  unconscious  poetry  of  the  popu- 
lar mind  transformed  the  splendid  figures  of  the  past 
into  minor  deities.  The  primitive  Indo-European  faith, 
which  attributed  paternity  to  God,  favored  the  apotheo- 
sis of  the  fathers.  The  first  men  were  the  sons  of  Dy- 
aushpitar — partook  of  his  divine  nature — were  divine. 
The  anthropomorphic  process  introduced  human  elements 
into  the  idea  of  God ;  apotheosis  introduced  divine  ele- 
ments into  the  idea  of  man.  Each  widened  the  circle  of 
Polytheism,  allowed  the  imagination  to  deify  men  as 
easily  as  it  had  once  deified  natural  and  sacerdotal  ob- 
jects. The  idea  had  ceased  to  be  exclusive,  and 
become  comprehensive.  The  difficulty  was  now  to 
determine  not  what  was,  but  what  was  not,  divine.  And 
at  this  very  point  the  mythical  faculty  became  exhausted. 
It  was  crushed  beneath  the  multitude  of  its  own  crea- 
tions, died  because  it  had  driven  the  idea  with  which  it 
started  into  regions  where  it  could  no  longer  live. 


56  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

But  at  the  point  where  creation  ends,  combination 
begins.  The  gods  of  different  tribes  and  nations  become 
blended  together.  Foreign  worships  are  naturalized, 
and  their  legends  adapted  to  their  new  homes.  The  re- 
ligion of  the  Indian  aborigines  affected,  modified,  that 
of  the  Aryans —  certain  gods  of  the  soil  conquered  the 
conquerors.  Simple  as  was  the  German  mythology,  it 
was  an  amalgam  of  elements  d.erived  from  various 
sources.  And  every  one  knows  how  many  mythologies 
and  worships  coalesced  in  those  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
The  age  of  combination  culminates  in  the  epics.  They 
are  a  conscious  effort  to  weave  into  historical  harmony 
and  form  the  mythical  creations  of  the  past.  The  poet 
finds  the  myths  of  conquering  and  conquered  peoples, 
aborigines  and  immigrants,  legends  native  and  foreign, 
floating  side  by  side,  and  these  he  shapes  into  the  story 
he  sings.  The  epic  is  thus  a  real,  though  perhaps  un- 
intentional, attempt  to  systematize  mythology,  so  to 
combine  and  coordinate  the  conflicting  positions  and 
claims  of  the  gods  as  to  produce  a  credible  and  organ- 
ized Polytheism. 

But  since  the  epic  is  a  product  of  the  reflective  con- 
sciousness, since  it  attempts  to  combine  heterogeneous 
elements  into  a  homogeneous  system,  it  marks  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  stage  in  the  development  of  the  idea 
of  God — the  reflective.  The  mythical  faculty  has  ex- 
hausted its  resources,  ended  its  career,  and  further  mul- 
tiplication is  now  impossible.  The  reflective  faculty 
now  comes  forward  to  develop  the  idea  in  another 
direction — that  of  unity.  It  does  not  begin  by  denying, 
but  by  assuming  the  truth  of  the  mythical  creations. 
The  gods  are  all  true,  have  each  their  place  and  work 
in  the  universe.      But  it  seeks  behind  and  above  the 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD,  ^^ 

gods  an  abstract,  unifying  principle,  ascribing  to  it  su- 
preme power  even  over  the  gods.  Characteristically  the 
Indians  developed  their  sacerdotal  deity  Brahmanaspati 
into  Brahma,  the  Supreme  God,  then  into  Brahma,  the 
Universal  Soul ;  and  quite  as  characteristically  Greek 
thought  started  on  its  unifying  course  from  Mmpa^  fate, 
the  Fate  that  controlled  gods  as  well  as  men.  The  same 
dread  power  stands  behind  the  German  gods,  Ragnar- 
okr,*  and  works  their  destruction.  These  are  the  first 
steps  of  the  reflective  consciousness  towards  unity,  more 
or  less  rude,  more  or  less  successful,  according  to  the 
people's  degree  of  culture  and  faculty  of  abstraction. 

This  touches  a  subject  which  cannot  be  even  glanced 
at  here  and  now.  Along  the  path  thus  opened  up 
philosophers  and  poets  in  India  and  Greece  were  to 
follow  each  other  in  quick  succession,  striving  to  find 
theistic  unity,  finding  Monism  often  enough,  never 
finding  Monotheism.  Into  a  subject  so  vast  it  would 
be  mere  impertinence  to  attempt  to  enter  at  the  close 
of  this  essay.  Enough  to  say,  reason  could  neither 
discover  nor  create  the  true  and  exhaustive  conception 
of  God.  The  idea  of  order  it  reached,  of  unity,  of  a 
cause,  of  a  supreme  good,  a  principle  that  moved  all 
things,  but  was  itself  unmoved,  but  the  unity  was  ab- 
stract, impersonal,  unity  of  a  thought,  not  of  a  living 
Being  capable  of  sustaining  relations  to  every  individual, 
personally  governing  the  world,  and  interposing  to  save 
it  when  lost.  Man  can  worship  no  other  than  a  per- 
sonal God,  with  qualities  that  appeal  to  the  noblest  and 
tenderest  susceptibilities  of  his  heart.     But  this  God 

•  Pfleiderer,  "  Die  Religion,"  ii.  p.  loi ;  Grimm,  "Deut.  My- 
thol.,"  p.  774. 


58  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

neither  poetry  nor  philosophy  could  create,  and  the 
brilliant  thought  of  Greece,  which  started  from  the  Fate 
of  the  Poet,  landed  in  the  Pantheism  of  the  Stoic,  the 
Atheism  of  the  Epicurean,  or  the  universal  doubt  of  the 
Skeptic,  while  the  speculative  thought  of  India  ended  in 
the  Atheism  of  Kapila,  or  the  Akosmism  of  the  Vedanta.* 
Without  the  God  man  needed,  the  religions  of  the  West, 
smitten  with  hopeless  incompetence  and  decay,  perished 
amid  general  license,  under  the  indifference  of  the 
rulers,  the  antagonism  of  the  philosophers,  and  the 
apathy  of  the  people ;  while  the  more  fervid  spirits  of 
the  East  forsook  the  religion  of  caste  for  the  religion  of 
despair,  and  plunged  into  the  worship  of  annihilation. 
But  in  the  fulness  of  time  the  idea  the  world  needed 
was  revealed.  The  Christian  idea,  which  held  in  it  the 
noblest  elements  of  the  Indo-European  and  Semitic  con- 
ceptions, the  pure  Monotheism  of  the  one  blended  with 
the  Fatherhood  of  the  other,  unity  yet  plurality,  distinc- 
tion from  the  world,  yet  immanence  in  it,  absolute  divin- 
ity, yet  not  excluding  union  with  humanity,  was  given  as 
the  most  complete  revelation  of  God  man  could  receive. 
This  idea,  the  only  one  that  can  at  once  commend  itself 
to  the  speculative  reason  and  maintain  itself  as  a  living 
power  in  the  heart,  abides  amid  all  the  fluctuations  of 
thought  *' without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turning." 

*  The  terminology  of  our  western  philosophies  can  hardly  be  ap- 
plied accurately  to  the  Hindu  systems.  They  are  when  most  like 
ours  always  like  with  a  difference.  It  depends  very  much  on  the 
interpretation  given  of  the  idea  of  God  and  the  importance  attached 
to  it,  whether  the  Sankhya  philosophy  be  judged  Atheistic,  while 
the  term  Akosmism,  applied  first  by  Jacobi  and  afterwards  by 
Hegel,  to  the  system  of  Spinoza,  can  be  used  of  the  Vedanta  as  a 
designation  only  approxitnatively  correct.  To  it  the  world  was  an 
illusion ;  Brahma  the  only  and  absolute  reality. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION 


59 


THEISM   AND   SCIENTIFIC    SPECULATION. 

'T^HE  scientific  and  religious  conceptions  of  the  world 
seem  to  stand  at  this  moment  in  the  sharpest  possi- 
ble antagonism.  Their  conflict  has,  indeed,  of  late  been 
too  much  of  a  mere  platform  and  pulpit  controversy  to 
be  a  brave  and  fair  facing  of  the  questions  and  issues. 
Certain  leaders  in  science,  with  a  turn  for  metaphysics, 
certain  leaders  in  theology,  with  a  turn  for  science,  have 
become  almost  intellectual  knights-errant,  always  pran- 
cing about  the  country  bellicose  and  armed,  great  in  chal- 
lenge and  counter-challenge,  retort,  invective,  and  innu- 
endo. These  passages  of  arms  may  easily  be  overrated. 
The  world's  decisive  battles  have  not  been  fought  by 
careering  and  trumpeting  errant  knights.  Thinking 
done  in  public  and  embodied  in  speech  now  scornful, 
now  pitiful,  now  minatory,  may,  while  very  pat  to  the 
times,  be  deficient  in  every  quality  that  can  command 
conviction  and  win  respect.  But  there  is  one  fact  we 
cannot  well  overrate, — the  state  of  conflict  or  mental 
schism  in  which  every  devout  man,  who  is  also  a  man  of 
culture,  feels  himself  compelled  more  or  less  consciously 
to  live.  His  mind  is  an  arena  in  which  two  conceptions 
struggle  for  the  mastery,  and  the  struggle  seems  so 
deadly  as  to  demand  the  death  of  one  for  the  life  of 
the  other,  faith  sacrificed  to  knowledge  or  knowledge  to 
faith. 

Our  age  is,  perhaps,  morbidly  alive  to  the  collisions 
and  antitheses   of  Science  and   Religion.     On  the  one 


6o       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION. 

side,  science  conceives  a  universe  self-evolved,  ruled  by 
necessary  laws,  made  up  of  forces  inexhaustible,  inde- 
structible, convertible  into  infinitely  varied  modes  of 
being  and  action.  On  the  other  side,  religion  conceives 
the  world  as  a  creation,  the  work  of  a  voluntary  Creator, 
regards  Nature  as  the  arena  of  a  now  ordinary,  now  ex- 
traordinary, but  never  still  or  ineffective  divine  opera- 
tion. Science  charges  theology  with  setting  up  unveri- 
fied and  unverifiable  notions,  arbitrary  will,  supernatural 
interference,  the  fickle  and  irregular  action  upon  Nature 
of  a  power  without  it.  Theology  reproaches  science 
with  seeking  either  to  evolve  an  uncaused  universe,  or 
to  reduce  the  divine  connexion  with  it  to  the  smallest 
possible  point,  making  God  as  good  as  no-god,  with 
hardly  any  part  in  the  creation  of  the  world,  without 
active  relation  to  it,  or  living  concern  in  it,  ever  since. 
Conciliation  by  the  division  of  their  respective  provinces 
is  impossible,  for  the  point  contested  belongs  by  equal 
rights  to  both.  The  highest  truth  of  religion  is  the  ulti- 
mate problem  of  science ;  the  one  lives  by  faith  in  a 
Creator,  the  other  lives  to  seek  and  discover  a  cause. 
Nor  will  peace  be  secured  by  conquest.  Man  cannot  live 
either  by  religion  or  by  science  alone.  Both  are  neces- 
sary to  the  perfection  alike  of  the  individual  and  society. 
The  realities  of  science  are  as  sacred  as  those  of  relig- 
ion, ought  to  be  as  diligently  sought  by  the  intellect,  as 
loyally  served  by  conscience  and  heart.  The  truth  that 
shall  reconcile  the  two  is  to  be  found,  not  by  silence  or 
concealed  convictions  on  either  side,  but  by  the  frank 
criticism  and  cooperation  of  physicist  and  metaphys- 
ician. The  discussion  to  be  here  attempted  is  meant 
simply  as  an  humble  contribution  towards  this  most 
desirable  end. 


THEISM  A  ATD  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.      6 1 

Our  present  controversies  on  this  subject  ought  not 
to  be  deprecated.  They  are  healthy  and  bracing,  mark 
a  clearer  and  more  wholesome  state  of  the  mental  at- 
mosphere than  existed  twenty  years  since.  Mind  has 
proved  too  strong  for  the  feeble  and  pretentious  philos- 
ophy that  then  claimed  to  have  defined  the  objects  and 
limits  of  knowledge.  Theism  was  ruled  out  of  court  on 
the  plea  of  mental  incompetence.  M.  Comte  had  ban- 
ned the  inquiry  into  causes — the  very  word  cause.  Phe- 
nomena and  their  laws  were  the  only  subjects  of  ra- 
tional investigation.  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes  wrote  his  brilliant 
but  inaccurate  "  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy," 
to  prove  that  philosophy,  aspiring  to  the  knowledge  of 
causes,  had  endeavored  to  compass  the  impossible, 
but  positive  science,  recognizing  the  limits  of  human 
faculties,  contented  itself  with  the  possible.  And 
so,  while  the  reign  of  the  one  had  ceased,  the  em- 
pire of  the  other  was  established.  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  in  his 
most  elaborate  and  influential  work,  pronounced  "  ulti- 
mate or  efficient  causes  radically  inaccessible  to  the 
human  faculties,"*  and  based  his  judgment  on  what  were 
thought  irrefragable  philosophic  grounds.  But  now  all  is 
changed.  The  search  after  causes,  both  efficient  and 
ultimate,  is  being  conducted  with  the  most  daring  and 
unwearied  enthusiasm.  Science  has  become  as  specu- 
lative, as  prolific  of  physico-metaphysical  theories  as  the 
most  bewitched  metaphysician  could  desire.  On  more 
than  one  occasion  distinguished  physicists  have  been 
seen  to  stray  into  a  perfect  wilderness  of  metaphysics, 
where,  getting  enchanted,  they  have  become  as  enam- 
oured of  their  physically  named  metaphysical  entities  as 
Titania  of  the  illustrious  weaver;  only,  unhappily,  their 

*  Logic,  vol.  i.  p.  422,  1st  ed. 


62       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION. 

disenchantment  has  not  always  been  as  complete  as 
hers.  The  two  men  chiefly  responsible  for  the  change 
are  Mr.  Darwin  and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  Evolution, 
as  a  new  creational  theory,  inevitably  raised  the  old 
questions  as  to  causes.  While  Mr.  Darwin  concerned 
himself  with  its  scientific  statement  and  relations,  Mr. 
Spencer  attempted  to  find  it  a  basis  in  a  metaphysical 
system,  compounded  of  certainly  not  too  homogeneous 
philosophical  and  psychological  principles.  The  con- 
sequent crop  of  cosmic  speculation  has  been  of  the  most 
varied  and  extensive  kind,  ranging  from  theories  as  to 
the  origin  of  species  to  theories  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
universe.  Mr.  Darwin,  admirable  in  his  caution,  has 
held  strictly  to  the  scientific  proofs  of  his,  as  compared 
with  later  developments,  modest  thesis,  hardly  ever  ad- 
venturing into  the  exhausting  atmosphere  of  pure  spec- 
ulation. Mr.  Spencer,  bolder  and  more  speculative,  has 
essayed  the  ambitious  task  of  building  a  science  of  the 
universe  on  a  philosophy  of  the  Unknowable.  Professor 
Haeckel,  of  Jena,  has,  in  a  work  now  translated,  remark- 
able for  its  lucid  eloquence,  terse  and  intelligible  expo- 
sition, easy  and  masterful  movement  of  thought,  ex- 
pounded a  system  of  the  most  thoroughgoing  Monism, 
a  "  Natural  History  of  Creation,"  which,  as  to  the  Be- 
coming, alike  of  inorganic  and  organic  nature,  is  meant 
to  leave  no  room  for  a  Creator.  Professor  Tyndall's 
presidential  address  is  memorable  enough,  were  it  only 
as  an  instance  of  sweet  simplicity  in  things  historical, 
and  the  most  high-flying  metaphysics  disguised  in  scien- 
tific terms.  Recently  there  has  come  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic  a  "  Cosmic   Philosophy,"  *  which, 

*  "Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,"  by  John  Fiske,  M.A., 
LL.B., — an  admirable,  though  hardly  a  compendious,  exposition  of 
the  philosophy  of  evolution. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION.       63 

while  built  on  Mr.  Spencer's,  still  more  happily  illus- 
trates the  aversion  of  our  latest  scientific  speculation  to 
Positivism.  If  the  Becoming  of  the  univ^erse  is  to  be 
explained,  the  search  into  causes  must  be  held  not  only 
possible,  but  necessary. 

In  these  discussions,  which  touch  its  very  being.  The- 
ism has  a  right  to  take  part.  If  it  and  science  stand 
opposed  on  many  points,  they  ought  to  agree  in  their 
common  love  of  truth,  and  as  common  desire  to  find 
and  confess  it.  We  have  come  from  a  fresh  point,  and 
along  new  lines,  face  to  face  with  the  deepest  questions, 
not  simply  of  our,  but  of  all  time,  and  our  common  duty 
is  to  read  as  best  we  can  the  everlasting  riddle.  Theism 
has  surely  claims  enough,  even  in  the  changed  aspects 
old  questions  wear,  to  entitle  it  to  a  fair  and  patient 
hearing.  But  that  is  a  thing  hard  io  get.  Our  present 
controversies  are  cursed  by  our  past.  The  quest  after 
truth  often  turns  into  a  hunt  after  fruitless  and  provok- 
ing error.  Eminence  ought  to  be  above  the  meanness 
of  mediocrity,  science  superior  to  the  tactics  of  the  sec- 
ularist lecturer  or  pamphleteer.  Distinguished  scientists 
should  leave  it  to  obscurer  men  to  make  paints  against 
theology  and  the  churches.  But  certain  of  them,  though 
moving,  as  they  believe,  to  victory,  are  ungenerous 
enough  to  confuse  the  battle  by  raising  the  ghosts  of 
the  dead,  to  exasperate  the  sons  by  fighting  them  with 
the  bones  of  their  fathers.  They  seldom  forget  that 
Rome  burnt  Bruno  and  tortured  Galileo,  that  the  Ge- 
neva Calvin  ruled  sent  Servetus  to  the  stake,  and  the 
synagogue  of  Amsterdam  expelled  and  cursed  Spinoza. 
They  seldom  remember  that  science  has  known,  still 
knows,  how  to  persecute,  that  cultured  and  pagan  Athens 
could  be  as  merciless  to  free  enquiry  and  thought  as 


64       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 

Christian  and  Catholic  Rome.  If  they  become  histor 
ians,  they  are  eloquent  over  the  "  intellectual  immobility  " 
of  the  middle  ages,  but  silent  as  to  its  daring  and  subtle 
and  even  skeptical  thought.  They  praise  Copernicus 
and  Gassendi,  but  fail  to  indicate  what  relation  religion 
and  the  Church  had  to  their  studies.  They  narrate  the 
conquests  of  science  as  if  they  had  been  victories  over 
theology,  and  not  over  ignorance.  The  antiquated  and 
false  views  of  Nature  which  old  divines  maintained,  and, 
because  old,  could  not  but  maintain,  are  gravely  repre- 
sented as  essential  to  religion,  almost  identical  with  it, 
and  are  no  less  gravely  classified  and  exhibited  as  ex- 
ploded religious  doctrines,  rather  than  as  what  they 
really  are,  exploded  conceptions  of  Nature,  necessarily, 
indeed,  interwoven  with  the  religious,  as  with  the  other 
thought  of  the  time,  but  as  form,  not  as  matter.  These 
points  are  well  illustrated  in  a  recent  book,  an  unworthy 
member  of  a  generally  worthy  series,  which  professes 
to  represent  "  the  Conflict  of  Religion  and  Science,"  * 
but  succeeds  in  representing  little  else  than  an  unscien- 
tific and  shallow,  perverse  and  untruthful,  conception 
of  their  historical  relations.  Truth  can  never  be  served, 
or  science  promoted,  by  factional  histories  or  sectarian 
polemics.  Work  done  under  these  conditions  can  never 
be  done  well.  They  tend  to  create  and  maintain  a 
state  of  feud,  with  the  jealousies  and  retaliations  that 
interfere  with  honest  husbandry,  and  raise  on  either 
side  the  borderland  moss-troopers,  not  always  careful 
whose  cattle  they  lift,  or  what  happens  to  their  owners. 

*  Draper's  "History  of  the  Conflict  between  Religion  and 
Science,"  Henry  S.  King  &  Co.,  1875,  O'^^  °^  *^^  international 
scientific  series,  though  one  can  hardly  see  what  right  it  has  to  be 
there. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION       65 

This  one-sided  and  ungenerous  method  of  using  the 
past  against  the  present  needs  to  be  expHcitly  censured. 
It  is,  at  best,  but  a  caricature  of  the  truth,  not  too 
sympathetically  done,  good,  perhaps,  as  a  caricature,  but 
bad  as  a  hkeness.  Theism  has  served  science,  and  its 
services  ought  to  be  acknowledged.  They  might,  indeed, 
be  proved  to  be  so  many  as  to  be  more  than  the  utmost 
generosity  of  speech  and  action  could  now  repay.  The 
belief  that  God  created  the  world  helped  to  make  science 
religious,  in  the  noblest  sense,  in  her  winsome  and  wonder- 
ing childhood,  reverent  before  Nature,  as  if  it  were  the 
outer  court  of  the  great  Temple,  through  which  wandered 
veiled  but  beautiful  light,  the  shadow  of  the  God  whose 
seat  w.as  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Inquiry  was  worship.  To 
admire  the  work  was  to  adore  the  Worker.  To  extend 
the  knowledge  of  Nature  was  to  enlarge  the  knowledge 
of  God.  The  Moorish  philosophers  were  devout  Theists, 
religiously  searched  for  more  adequate  modes  of  expres- 
sing the  inexpressible  greatness,  the  unresting  activity, 
the  unsearchable  wisdom  of  Allah.  Copernicus  was  as 
famous  for  his  piety  as  for  his  genius,  consecrated  himself 
and  his  means  to  three  services  that  were  to  him  as  one, 
God,  man,  and  science.  The  belief  that  the  universe 
had  been  built,  as  it  were,  to  divine  music,  and  manifest- 
ed divine  purpose  and  action  everywhere,  in  the  minutest 
structures  as  in  the  splendid  and  harmonious  whole, 
made  the  pious  Kepler  imagine,  with  Plato,  that  the 
Creator  had  geometrized,  and  that  he,  in  discovering  the 
laws  of  the  creation,  was  but  thinking  the  thoughts  of 
God  after  Him.  Bacon,  too,  the  father  of  the  modern 
Inductive  Philosophy,  not  only  thought  Theology  the 
crown  and  the  queenliest  of  the  sciences,  but  found  his 
highest  satisfaction  in  offering  his  great  work  as  a  sacri- 

S 


66       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECUIA  TION. 

fice  to  the  glory  of  the  Immortal  God.  Galileo,  victim 
of  the  Inquisition  as  he  was,  held  that  to  despise  his 
science  was  to  despise  "the  Holy  Scriptures,  which 
teach  us  that  the  glory  and  greatness  of  Almighty  God 
are  admirably  discerned  in  all  His  works,  and  divinely 
read  in  the  open  book  of  heaven."  Newton  thought  every 
step  in  the  knowledge  of  Nature  a  step  nearer  to 
the  knowledge  of  God,  and  believed  that  the  better 
we  understood  the  systems,  celestial  and  terrestrial, 
the  more  would  "  we  admire  Him  on  account  of  His 
perfections,  venerate  and  worship  Him  on  account  of 
His  government."  To  quote  indeed  ever}'-  name  illus- 
trative of  our  position  were  to  cite  almost  all  the  fathers 
of  modern  science.  So  far  were  they  from  thinking,  like 
certain  of  their  sons,  that  God  was  the  last  enemy  to  be 
destroyed,  and  religion  a  force  that  must  not  be  "  per- 
mitted to  intrude  on  the  region  of  knowledge,"  that  they 
rather  held  with  Plato — the  farther  they  penetrated  into 
the  secrets  of  the  universe  the  nearer  they  got  to  God. 
For  they  believed,  as  he  did,  that  the  world  was  "a 
perceptible  God,  image  of  the  intelligible,  greatest  and 
best,  the  most  beautiful  and  perfect,  the  one  only- 
begotten  universe."* 

But  there  is  no  desire  to  speak  'as  if  men  of  science 
were  alone  to  blame.  They  are  not.  Theologians 
are  unreasonably  jealous  of  scientists,  given  to  ill- 
considered  and  ill-informed  criticism,  to  rash  and  harsh 
judgments,  to  the  words  that  now  do  the  work  once  done 
by  bell,  and  book,  and  candle.  They  are  too  fearful  of 
free  inquiry,  confront  science  too  much  in  the  interests 
of  the  creeds,  too  little  with  the  open  sense  that  seeks 

*  "  Timaeus,"  iii.  p.  92. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       67 

God's  truth  everywhere.  They  well  understand  the 
sanctity  of  forms  and  doctrines,  but  not  so  well  the 
sanctity  of  eternal  fact.  Yet  the  theologian  has  an 
apology  for  his  failings  on  the  ungenerous  side  that  the 
scientist  wants.  Theology,  by  the  very  necessities  of 
its  nature,  is  more  conservative  and  retrospective  than 
science.  Religion  receives  from  the  past  the  notional 
forms  which  sefem  to  it  the  very  truths  by  which  it  lives. 
But  science  reads  the  past  simply  as  a  history  of  mingled 
success  and  failure,  written  to  stimulate  the  present  to 
win  by  wiser  methods  more  splendid  triumphs.  Religion 
builds  on  what  it  believes  to  be  accomplished  and  ex- 
plained facts,  and  so  fears  every  change  that  touches 
its  fundamental  realities,  or  the  forms  which  possess  a 
sacramental  meaning  and  sanctity.  But  science,  never 
satisfied  with  the  old,  ever  seeking  the  new,  welcomes 
every  revolution  that  changes  the  lines  of  its  thought 
and  widens  the  circle  of  its  knowledge. 

Yet  religion  is  in  no  proper  sense  the  antithesis  of 
science.  Only  confusion  can  come  from  so  conceiving 
it.  Constructive  religious  thought  may  be  opposed  to 
science,  but  only  as  one  science  to  another,  as  distinct, 
or  even  contrary,  but  not  as  contradictory.  In  a  sense 
quite  other  than  the  man  who  said  it  meant,  we  can  say, 
"  Theology  is  anthropology."*  All  science  is  anthro- 
pological, the  creation  of  human  faculties,  the  symbol  of 
so  much  human  culture,  so  many  human  ideas,  the  mirror 
of  mind  attempting  to  interpret  itself  and  Nature.  Man 
is  the  universe  in  little,  but  the  universe  idealized,  be- 
come conscious  mind.     He  can  approach  its  interpreta- 

*  Prof.  Steinthal,  of  Berlin,  in  an  article  sadly  significant  in  some 
respects,  "Zur  Religions-Philosophie,  Zeitschrift  fiir  Volkerpsy 
choL,"  vol.  viii.  271. 


68       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION 

tion  from  two  sides,  the  real  and  the  ideal,  as  it  appears 
to  thought  or  as  it  exists  in  thought,  as  it  is  revealed 
to  mind  or  as  it  is  unfolded  by  mind.  The  realist  in- 
terpretation is  science,  but  the  idealist  theology.  Science 
is  nature  explained  by  man ;  theology  is  nature  explain- 
ed in  and  through  him.  But  so  understood,  theology  is 
a  science,  the  science  of  the  highest  in  the  universe. 
Man,  as  the  highest  being  in  Nature,  is  the  highest  re- 
velation of  its  secret,  the  Aoyoq  r.po(popt/.6q,  by  which 
knowledge  of  the  eternal  A6yo<^  ivdcdOsroi;  is  won.  If, 
therefore,  "  theology  is  anthropology,"  it  is  because  the 
avOpto-oq  is  the  image  of  the  Osoq^  man  the  translucent 
manifestation  of  God. 

But  religion  is  not  a  science,  or  any  constructive  or 
reasoned  system  of  thought  that  can  be  opposed  to  it. 
It  is  simply  spirit  expressing  in  symbol  its  conscious- 
ness of  relations  other  and  higher  than  physical  and 
social.  Religion  is  a  permanent  and  universal  charac- 
teristic of  man,  a  normal  and  necessary  product  of  his 
nature.  He  grows  into  religion,  but  works  into  theo- 
logy, y^^/f  himself  into  the  one,  thinks  himself  into  the 
other.  He  is  religious  by  nature,  theological  by  art. 
In  a  sense  it  can  be  said,  there  is  only  one  religion, 
but  there  are  many  theologies,  just  as  every  human 
being  knows  he  is  a  man,  but  not  every  human  being 
knows  what  man  is.  The  feelings  of  dependence,  rev- 
erence, devotion,  are  universal,  everywhere  seek  out  and 
worship  an  appropriate  object.  And  the  object  must  be 
personal,  a  Being  to  love  and  command,  be  loved  and 
obeyed.  And  only  as  the  intellect  begins  to  speculate 
on  this  Being,  His  relations  to  man  and  nature,  does  a 
theology  arise.  But  these  speculations,  while  right  in 
the  end  to  which  they  strive,  may  be  wrong  in  the 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       69 

methods  by  which  they  work  and  the  forms  in  which 
they  are  expressed.  Imperfect  and  transitory  doctrines 
in  theology  can  as  little  disprove  religion  as  provisional 
theories  in  science  can  discredit  Nature. 

An  object  of  worship,  a  Being  worthy  of  love  and 
reverence,  in  other  words,  a  God,  is  necessary  to  religion. 
But  this  religious  idea  is  one  thing,  its  scientific  expres- 
sion another.  Man  may  conceive  God  and  His  relation 
to  the  world  under  forms  the  most  varied.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  he  has  done  so,"  does  so  still.  He  borrows  from 
Nature  the  symbols  by  which  he  tries  to  articulate  his 
faith.  Thought  must,  as  it  becomes  abstract  and  meta- 
physical, refine  the  symbols,  but  cannot,  save  by  the 
most  violent  revolution,  break  away  from  the  ideas  they 
represented,  or  the  lines  in  which  these  ideas  moved. 
The  phenomena  of  generation  have  suggested  an  ema- 
national  relation  of  Deity  to  the  world  ;  those  of  organic 
life  an  immanent;  those  of  adaptation  an  architecto- 
nic. Theism,  both  philosophical  and  religious,  has 
conceived  God  under  these  and  many  other  forms, 
and  been  still  Theism  and  still  religious.  The  theistic 
idea  and  the  cosmic  form  may  thus  so  grow  together 
as  to  seem  indissoluble,  and  even  identical.  But 
while  this  union  may  secure  to  the  idea,  clearness  and 
intelligibility,  it  may  expose  it  to  the  greatest  possible 
danger.  In  ages  when  science  is  active  and  progressive, 
it  may  so  revolutionize  our  knowledge  of  natural  pro- 
cesses and  laws  as  to  break  up  our  cosmic  conception, 
and  change  into  antiquated  errors  the  forms  in  which  the 
theistic  idea  had  been  expressed.  Men  on  both  sides 
may  think  the  old  conception  of  Nature  necessary  to 
Theism,  the  notions  of  action  and  relation  it  supplied 
the  only  modes  in  which  it  is  possible  to  conceive  God 


70       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TlON. 

and  the  world  as  related  to  each  other,  and  so,  an  angry 
wail  rising  from  the  one  side  and  a  shout  of  defiance 
from  the  other,  theology  and  science  may  join  battle  on 
the  radically  false  issue,  that  a  given  cosmic  conception 
is  essential  to  faith  in  God.  It  is  as  if  all  the  theistic 
words  in  a  language  had  suddenly  been  lost  or  forgot- 
ten, and  speech  as  to  God  made  impossible.  There 
would  indeed  be  great  temporary,  in  some  respects 
permanent,  loss.  Words  consecrated  by  tender  me- 
mories, by  holy  associations,  by  sacred  use,  would  no 
longer  exercise  their  spell-like  influence  on  the  devout 
mind.  Terms  sharpened  by  centuries  of  definition  and 
debate  into  watchwords  of  rival  systems,  would,  by  ceas- 
ing to  be,  cease  to  excite  the  enthusiasm  of  love  on  the 
one  side  or  hate  on  the  other.  But  theistic  thought 
would  not  perish  with  its  old  verbal  vehicles,  would  soon 
create  a  new  and  nobler  speech,  making  the  loss  gain. 
The  present,  freed  from  the  tyranny  of  the  past,  would 
speak  its  own  thoughts  in  its  own  tongue.  Religion, 
proved  independent  of  its  symbols,  unweighted  by  a 
history  of  mingled  good  and  ill,  would  win  its  way,  not 
as  letter  to  civil,  but  as  spirit  to  moral  supremacy.  So 
the  decay  of  old  cosmic  notions  may  involve  the  decay 
of  theological  formulae,  but  need  not  touch  the  truth 
they  provisionally  expressed.  It  will  survive  the  shock 
of  dissolution,  assume  another  body,  and  live  through 
another  of  those  epochs  when  men  who  "  see  through  a 
glass  darkly "  strive  towards  the  day  when  they  shall 
"  see  face  to  face." 

Now,  our  present  theistic  contests  and  perils  rise,  in 
great  part,  from  changes  effected,  or  being  effected,  in 
our  cosmic  conception.  The  old  Theism  is  supposed 
to  have  been  based  on  teleology.     The  world  was  an 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       7 1 

effect  which  implied  a  Cause,  exhibited  everywhere 
marks  of  design  which  proves  a  Designer.  It  was  argued, 
— the  more  curious  a  contrivance  the  more  certain  a 
contriver  ;  the  world  is  the  most  curious  of  all  contriv- 
ances ;  therefore,  the  being  and  intelligence  of  its  Con- 
triver the  most  certain  of  all  conclusions.  But  evolution 
is  said  to  have  made  an  end  of  teleology.  Design  has 
vanished  from  the  face  of  the  earth ;  and  with  it  the 
proofs  of  a  Designer.  Theism  is  represented  as  an  an- 
thropomorphic theory  of  creation,  "  process  of  manufac- 
ture" by  "  a  manlike  Artificer."  As  Mr.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, with  happy  assurance,  generalizes,* — "  Alike  in  the 
rudest  creeds  and  the  cosmogony  long  current  among 
ourselves,  it  is  assumed  that  the  genesis  of  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  is  effected  somewhat  after  the  manner  in 
which  a  workman  shapes  a  piece  of  furniture."  And, 
of  course,  physicists  who  have  every  confidence  in  Mr. 
Spencer's  metaphysics,  cannot  do  less  than  follow  him 
here,  and  set  down  the  theistic  theory  as  one  which 
"  converts  the  Power  whose  garment  is  seen  in  the  visi- 
ble universe  into  an  Artificer,  fashioned  after  the  human 
model,  and  acting  by  broken  efforts,  as  man  is  seen  to 
act.''t  Theism  and  evolution  thus  become  antitheses, 
the  one  exhibiting  "  the  method  of  Nature,"  the  other 
"  the  *  technic '  of  a  manlike  Artificer."  The  one  is 
monistic,  mechanical,  causal ;  the  other  dualistic,  vital, 
teleological.  %     But  science   knows  nothing  of   final, 

*  "  First  Principles,"  p.  33. 

t  Professor  Tyndall,  "  Address,*'  p.  58. 

X  Haeckel,  "  NatUrliche  Schopfungs-Geschichte,"  p.  19.  Pro- 
fessor Huxley,  however,  who  has  always  been  much  more  cautious 
and  skilful  in  metaphysics  than  some  of  his  scientific  brethren, 
denies  that  there  is  any  antagonism  between  evolution  and  teleology. 


72       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 

knows  only  efficient,  causes.  And  so  it  happens  that 
we  have,  on  the  one  side,  men,  for  the  sake  of  Theism, 
doing  battle  against  a  given  cosmic  conception,  on  the 
other,  men,  for  the  sake  of  a  given  cosmic  conception  do- 
ing battle  against  Theism.  The  theologian,  to  save  his 
evidences,  denies  a  scientific  theory;  the  scientist,  to 
maintain  his  theory,  denies  a  theological  conception. 
Whether  these  are  necessary  issues  is  a  not  altogether 
unnecessary  question. 

The  question,  then,  that  here  meets  us  is  this — ■ 
whether  the  theory  of  creation  by  the  art  or  technic  of 
a  manlike  Artificer  be  necessary  to  Theism.  As  the 
question  has  both  an  historical  and  a  philosophical  side, 
the  historical  had  better  come  first.  Our  scientific 
speculation  assumes  that  the  belief  in  God  was  the 
product  of  an  anthropomorphic  interpretation  of  nature. 
Primitive  man,  superstitious,  ignorant  of  the  inductive 
method,  and  many  other  things,  drew  his  creational 
theory  not  from  the  study  of  Nature,  but  the  observation 
of  himself.  So  he  conceived  God  as  a  mechanic  on  a 
great  scale,  making  the  world  as  he  made  a  machine. 
Now,  how  does  the  case  actually  stand  ?  The  earliest 
names  of  Deity  show  that  men  dreamed  of  nothing  less 
than  conceiving  Him  as  an  Artificer,  or  Architect,  or 
Builder.  The  Hebrew  was  the  purest  monotheist  of 
antiquity,  the  most  strenuous  believer  in  creation  by 
God  j  but  how  did  he  conceive  him  as  acting  ?  Not  by 
a  "  process  of  manufacture,"  or  like  "  a  workman  shap- 


In  his  review  of  Haeckel  in  the  Academy  he  rebuked  the  dis- 
tinguished German  for  his  thorough-going  denial  of  teleology, 
and  now  he  has  in  his  Glasgow  lecture  told  us  that  evolution 
leaves  the  argument  from  design  practically  where  it  was. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 


73 


ing  a  piece  of  furniture,"  but  as  an  immanent  yet 
intelligent  Energy,  Creator,  Maker,  if  you  like,  but  not 
mechanic.  He  created  by  speech,  the  symbol  of 
thought ;  by  a  command,  the  symbol  of  will.  The 
world  was  the  expression  of  the  divine  thought,  the 
creation  of  the  divine  will ;  and  so  came  to  be,  not  by 
an  artificial  constructive,  but  by  a  natural  productive, 
process.  In  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  there  are  indeed 
frequent  anthropomorphisms  of  speech,  but,  allowing 
for  the  picturesque  and  sensuous  orientalism  of  its  form, 
little  that  is  anthropomorphic  in  conception.  Indeed, 
the  fundamental  relations  of  God  and  the  world  are 
conceived  in  a  manner  nearer  Goethe's  than  Paley's. 
"  The  Spirit  of  God  brooded  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters."  God  is  "  covered  with  light  as  with  a  gar- 
ment ;"  "  clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him." 
He  is  the  Unseen,  the  Unsearchable,  working  unbeheld 
on  the  left  hand,  hiding  unperceived  on  the  right,  yet 
knowing  the  way  man  takes,  speaking  to  him  out  of  the 
whirlwind,  or  by  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  which  He  has 
ordained.  He  is  in  the  heaven  above,  in  the  earth,  in 
the  abyss  under  it,  and  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea, 
no  manlike  Being,  but  an  universal  Presence,  in 
moments  of  intense  emotion  realized  by  the  attribution 
of  human  qualities,  but  not,  therefore,  conceived  in  his 
cosmic  relations  as  a  magnified  mechanic.  In  the  dis- 
tinctive Hebrew  Name  of  Deity  there  is  nothing 
anthropomorphic ;  it  is  the  very  negation  of  anthropo- 
morphism, as  much  so  as  the  most  abstract  term  of 
metaphysics,  or  the  most  generalized  notion  of  science. 
Perhaps,  it  may  be  thought,  that  statement  ought  to  be 
qualified  by,  except  personality ;  but  as  the  personality 
is  not  "manlike,"  does  not  individualize,    it  is  more 


74       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 

correct  to  leave  the  exception  unmade.  Hebrew 
Monotheism  must,  then,  be  allowed  to  stand  as  a  Theism 
which  did  not  know,  therefore  did  not  spring  out  of,  the 
notion  of  creation  by  "the  'technic'  of  a  manlike 
Artificer." 

Where,  then,  did  that  notion  rise  ?  Not  in  Judaea,  but 
in  Greece,  and  in  Greece,  not  as  a  religious,  but  as  a 
scientific  and  philosophic  dogma.  It  did  not  create  the 
belief  in  God  or  gods,  but  was  created  by  the  endeavors 
of  men  anxious  to  explain  the  being  and  becoming  of 
the  world.  Mr.  Spencer  says,''^  "  A  religious  creed  is 
definable  as  an  a  priori  theory  of  the  universe."  The 
definition  may  be  concise  and  positive  enough,  but 
whether  it  be  correct  is  another  matter.  Certainly,  the 
native  religion  of  Greece  was  no  theory  as  to  the  origin 
of  the  universe.  The  Greek  gods  were,  in  no  proper 
sense,  creators.  They  stood  in  the  system  of  Nature, 
the  children  of  the  universal  Mother,  as  real  creatures 
as  men,  subject  to  all  the  limitations  of  the  created, 
distinguished  from  men  as  immortals  from  mortals,  but 
their  very  immortality  derivative,  not  inherent,  due  to 
divine  ambrosia,  not  to  their  own  wills  or  natures. 
One  of  the  Homeric  poets,  in  a  hymn  to  "  Earth,  the 
Mother  of  all  things,"  can  invoke  her  as  "  Mother  of 
the  gods," 

'KalpSj  Qeuv  fi^rrjpj  aT^x"  Ovpavov  aaTepdsvrog,^ 

Hesiod,  too,  brings  out  the  Chaos  first  "the  broad- 
bosomed  Earth,  the  firm  abode  of  all  things  ;"$  and 
then,  from  her  union  with  "  the  starry  Ouranos,"  makes 

*  "  First  Principles,"  p.  43. 

t  "  111  Tellurem  Matrem  Omnium,"  17. 

t  "Theog.,"  116,  117. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       75 

the  gods  spring.*  A  poet  so  devout  as  Pindar  can 
attribute  a  common  nature  and  parentage  to  gods  and 
men. 

"Ev  avSpuv^  Ev  deuv  yevoQ'  £k 
fiLag  6e  nveo/jev 
fiarpoQ  afi^dreirot.'t 

Sophokles,  too,  can  speak  of  the  earth  as  "  the  all- 
nourishing,  the  mother  of  Zeus  himself  :" 

'Opeorepa  na/JifitJTij  Fa, 

fiarep  aiirov  Aibg^ 

a  Tov  /uiyav  HaKTuTibv  evxpvaov  vefieig.^ 

Hence  the  Hellenic  mind,  in  its  objective  and  spon- 
taneous phase,  did  not  conceive  the  gods  as  the  architects 
of  the  world,  but  as  stones  of  the  great  structure. 
Nature  was  living,  self-existent,  the  all  fruitful  mother; 
the  gods  her  children.  Certain  oriental  theosophies, 
with  theological  or  pantheistic  theories  of  creation,  had 
indeed  been  introduced  into  Greece,  but  they  had  never 
been  naturalized,  or  become  even  fairly  intelligible  to 
the  native  sunny  naturalism.  And  so  the  earliest 
speculative  and  scientific  thought  was  as  remote  as 
possible  from  anthropomorphism,  or  any  conscious 
conflict  with  it.  It  rose  to  do  what  had  hitherto  been 
undone,  find  a  rational  theory  of  the  origin  and  being 
of  the  universe.  It  never  dreamt  of  utilizing  the  gods 
as  creators,  but  turned  to  seek  in  Nature  the  secret  of 
her  existence,  the  common  cause  of  the  system  which 
comprehended  both  gods  and  men.  And  so  the  earliest 
philosophic  thought  was  physical  and  mathematical, 
looked  for  the  universal  cause  successively  in  water 

*  Theog.,  132-137.       t  "  Nemea,"  vi.  1-3.       J  Philoct.,  391. 


76       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECUIATION. 

air,  fire,  number  or  harmony.  Only  as  the  conception 
of  order  became  deeper  did  the  necessity  of  assuming 
mind  as  its  one  adequate  cause  begin  to  appear. 
Anaxagoras  was  the  first  to  see  and  state  this  necessity;* 
but  so  little  did  he  understand  his  own  principle  that  both 
Platot  and  Aristotle^  had  to  complain  of  the  imperfect 
and  inconclusive  way  in  which  he  applied  it.  Once 
the  explanation  had  been  suggested,  it  seemed  so 
obvious  and  sufficient,  that  Aristotle  compared  the  ap- 
pearance of  Anaxagoras  among  the  older  philosophers 
to  the  rising  up  of  a  sober  man  to  speak  in  a  company 
of  tipplers. §  Plato,  alive  to  the  beauty  and  order  of 
the  world,  made  it  in  a  still  more  eminent  degree  the 
work  of  mind,  fashioned  by  divine  handicraft  after  a 
divine  archetype,  the  plan  or  idea  of  the  eternal  Artist. || 
And  the  end  of  creation  was  as  divine  as  the  idea,  the 
diffusion  of  the  goodness  which  is  God's  or  God.  In 
Aristotle,  though  his  theology  is  much  more  fluid  and 
less  determinable  than  Plato's,  yet  mind,  reason,  is  as 
necessary  to  the  being  of  his  universe,  and  the  good  as 
certainly  its  end.  In  one  point  his  is  the  more 
scientific  Theism — its  conception  of  God's  relation  to 
the  world  and  mode  of  action  in  it.  He  suggests,  in  a 
remarkable  passage,  that  possibly  the  truth  may  lie  in 
uniting  the  ideas  of  transcendent  and  immanent 
relation.lT  The  general  of  an  army  represents  the  one, 
the  order  or  discipline  he  creates  the  other,  and  as  in 
the  army,  so  in  the  world,  the  Supreme  Good  may  be 
conceived  as  a  distinct  being  and  as  the  collective  and 

♦  "  Diogenes  Laert.,"  ii.  6.  t  "  Phaedo,"  i.  97. 

X  «  Metaph.,"  lib.  i.  4.  12.  §  lb.,  lib.  i.  3,  16. 

0  "  Timaeus,"  iii.  28.  T  "  Metaph.,"  lib  xi.  10. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       77 

inherent  order,  which  secures  the  good  of  the  whole. 
In  that  Aristotelian  analogy  there  lay  the  germ  of  a 
Theism  that  might  have  saved  religious  thought  from 
falling  into  the  hard  and  shallow  Dualism,  which  has 
caused  much  bewildered  conflict  in  the  past,  and  con- 
tinues to  cause  no  less  in  the  present. 

The  Theism  that  thus  emerged  was  philosophic  and 
scientific,  not  religious,  an  attempt  to  explain  the  uni- 
verse, not  to  create  a  religion.  Its  god  was  not  Zeus. 
Plato's  deity  stood  ethically  far  above  the  Olympian, 
was  too  good  to  be  jealous  of  any  being,*  so  good  as  to 
desire  the  perfect  goodness  of  all.  Aristotle's,  as  the 
causal  and  controlling  principle,  created  order  and  hap- 
piness : 

OuAC  aryaOov  irolvKocpaviTf-  elg  Kolpavog.f 

Neither  was  victorious  over  the  puzzle  of  personality. 
Plato  came  nearest  victory,  but  he  glides  out  of  personal 
into  impersonal  modes  of  thought  and  speech  with  an 
ease  and  unconsciousness  that  greatly  perplex  a  modern 
Theist.  The  theistic  idea  was  in  each  case  determined 
by  the  cosmic.  Plato,  ideal,  artistic,  conceived  the 
world  as  a  structure  made  after  an  eternal  model,  and 
so  its  creator  was  a  Arj/xcoupySq,  a  great  artificer  or  me- 
chanic. Aristotle,  realistic,  scientific,  conceived  the 
world  as  an  organic  whole,  the  realization  of  an  im- 
manent energy,  and  so  his  creator  is  the  unmoved  mover 
of  all  things.  Both  believed  an  ordered  nature  to  be 
inexplicable  without  an  ordering  mind,  and  this  mind 
became  to  later  thought  more  personal,  more  capable 
therefore  of  religious  use,  and  akin  to  the  gods.     Once 

♦  "  Timaeus,"  iii.  29,  30.  t  "Metaph ,"  lib.  xi.  10.    "  Iliad,"  ii.  204 


jS       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION 

this  process  was  complete,  the  faith  that  had  been  so 
generated  easily  turned  back  to  seek  support  in  the  very 
phenomena  that  had  suggested  it,  and  so  in  Cicero  the 
Theism  of  antiquity  claims  the  harmonies  of  earth  and 
heaven  as  proving  its  right  to  be — "  Quai  contuens 
animus,  accipit  ab  his  cognitionem  deorum,  ex  qua  oritur 
pietas ;  cum  conjuncta  justitia  est,  reliquasque  vir- 
tutes."  * 

The  technic  or  handicraft  theory  as  to  the  origin  of 
things,  with  its  proof  of  a  Maker,  was  thus  no  creation 
of  religion,  but  of  science.  And  the  science  had  no 
religious  proclivities,  was  not  of  the  spurious  apologetic 
sort,  was  simjDly  doing  its  best  to  master  the  secret  of 
the  universe,  and  doing  it  with  a  cordial  and  unconceal- 
ed antagonism  to  the  religion  of  the  day  that  ought  to 
delight  certain  modern  scientists.  This  theory  of  pagan 
thought  was  passed  on  to  Christianity.  The  culture  of 
the  early  Apologists  and  Fathers  was  pagan,  and  their 
Theism,  so  far  as  scientific,  Hellenic  rather  than  Hebrew. 
Proofs  of  the  Being  of  God  were  unnecessary  things  to 
the  Jew,  most  necessary  things  to  the  Greek,  and  so 
men  who  had  to  prove  His  existence  had  no  help  but  to 
apply  to  the  latter.  And  with  the  technic  proofs  came 
the  idea  of  a  technic  relation  and  action.  They  were 
the  basis  of  such  similes  as — the  creation  suggests  the 
Creator  as  a  lyre  both  the  man  who  made  and  the  man 
who  plays  it.f  This  method  of  proof  the  more  specula- 
tive Fathers  and  Schoolmen,  like  Augustine  and  Anselm, 
disdained  ;  and  preferred  necessities  of  thought  to 
probable  inferences  of  reason,  the  ground  of  their  pre- 
ference being  an  entirely  opposed  conception  of  God's 

*  "  De  Nat.  Deor., '  ii.  Ixi. 

t  Gregory  Nazianz.,  "  Orat.,"  xxviii.  6,  p.  499. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.     79 

relation  to  the  world.  But  the  technic  theory  was  too 
precise,  intelligible,  and  useful  to  be  allowed  altogether 
to  die  out.  And  when  modern  science  began  to  open 
its  eyes  to  the  wondrous  mechanism  of  the  heavens  and 
the  beautiful  structures  of  earth,  apologetic  Theism, 
borrowing  and  developing  the  premises,  the  theological 
and  teleological  conceptions  of  the  "  Timaeus  "  and  the 
"  De  Natura  Deorum,"  defined  and  defended  its  position 
by  a  bewildering  multitude  of  proofs.  A  divine  law  of 
compensation  seemed  to  be  at  work.  The  science 
which  with  the  one  hand  undermined  the  ancient  faith, 
seemed  with  the  other  to  clear  for  it  a  vaster  and  more 
stable  foundation.  The  Royal  Society  of  England  con- 
tributed not  only  to  develop  science,  but  also  to  create 
a  "  Natural  Theology"  which  once  bade  fair  to  be  the 
rival  of  revealed.  Boyle  and  Derham  prepared  the  way 
for  Paley,  who  reasoned  from  design  to  a  Designer  in 
terms  and  on  principles  which  seemed  those  of  invincible 
common  sense.  And  since  then  Bridgewater  and  Bur- 
nett Treatises  have  appeared,  and  done  the  utmost  that 
can  be  done  on  these  lines  to  prove  the  Being,  power, 
wisdom,  and  goodness  of  God. 

The  argument  from  design  was  valid  enough  so  long 
as  the  old  technic  conception  of  Nature  stood.  If  the 
world  was  a  machine  whose  fittest  analogue  was  a  watch, 
then  a  maker  was  inevitable,  construction  impossible 
without  a  constructor.  But  the  logical  and  popular 
excellences  of  the  argument  were  its  scientific  defects. 
The  premises  implied  too  much,  required  a  cosmic 
theory  too  artificial  to  be  true  to  "  The  method  of  Na- 
ture." The  subtle  and  analytic  intellect  of  Hume  did 
much  to  turn  the  discussion  back  to  first  principles.  He 
resolved  mind  into  a  succession  of  ideas  and  impres- 


So       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 

sions,  which  could  not  transcend  experience,  being  no 
more  than  its  mirror.  His  analysis  resolved  causation 
into  mere  antecedence  and  sequence,  eliminated  the 
"  idea  of  power  or  necessary  connexion,"  which  alone 
made  any  theistic  inference  possible.  "  Thought,  design, 
intelligence,  such  as  we  discover  in  men  and  other 
animals,"  were  made  the  parallels  of  "  heat  and  cold, 
attraction  and  repulsion,"  and  no  more  than  one  of  the 
*'  springs  and  principles  of  the  universe. "  Hume's 
skepticism  explained  nothing,  made  nothing  certain,  or 
it  had  not  been  Skepticism,  made  the  world  "  a  singular 
kind  of  effect,"  a  product  of  blind  custom,  which  had 
become  what  it  is  by  chance  or  accident,  rather  than  by 
any  necessity  of  mind  or  nature.  Thought  could  not 
stand  where  he  left  it,  but  it  could  not  advance  without 
solving  the  problems  he  had  started.  Man  and  Nature 
had  to  be  interpreted  anew,  the  thousand  and  one 
problems  as  to  the  nature,  sources,  and  objects  of 
knowledge  reopened  and  re-discussed.  The  very  sub- 
tlety of  Hume's  skepticism  led  his  contemporaries  astray, 
and  allowed  its  full  significance  to  dawn  but  slowly  on 
the  minds  of  men  who;  occupied  with  subsidiary  points, 
missed  cardinal  principles.  Kant  headed  the  reaction 
against  Hume,  and  it  was  characteristic  of  the  new  di- 
rection of  thought  that  he  was  even  more  merciless  to 
the  old  theistic  argument.  It  was  incompatible  with  his 
doctrine  of  the  Difig  an  Sick.  To  reason  from  the 
phenomenal  to  the  transcendental  was  illegitimate.  For 
his  system,  God,  though  a  moral,  was  no  physical  ne- 
cessity. And  here  was  its  weakest  point.  Nature  and 
God  stood  dissociated,  the  one  lying,  as  it  were,  outside 
the  other,  capable  of  furnishing  no  evidence  either  to 
prove  or  disprove  His  Being.     The  old  artificial  dualism 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       8 1 

remained  unvanquished,  matter  and  mind  standing  over 
against  each  other  in  unreconciled  antithesis.  In  phys- 
ics his  idea  of  the  almost  mutual  inter-independence  of 
Nature  and  God  is  well  illustrated.  His  "  cosmic  gas 
hypothesis  "  is  an  attempt  to  explain  the  origin  of  the 
inorganic  universe  by  mechanical  law,  and  makes  him 
the  earliest  and  boldest  of  modern  evolutionists.  The 
unsolved  problems  that  lay  in  his  metaphysics  forced 
his  successors  to  try  new  speculative  methods,  to  seek 
along  various  roads  the  reconciliation  of  matter  and 
spirit,  Nature  and  God.  Hence  arose  the  marvellous 
creations  of  the  transcendental  philosophy,  Fichte's  sub- 
jective Idealism,  Jacobi's  emotional  Intuitionalism, 
Schelling's  absolute  Indifference  and  later  kaleidoscopic 
Mysticism,  and  Hegel's  absolute  Idealism.  The  specu- 
lations started  by  his  physics,  carried  along  different  but 
converging  lines  by  La  Place  and  Goethe,  Lamarck  and 
Oken,  have  become  our  now  well-known  theory  of 
creation  by  evolution.  It  was  perhaps  fortunate,  per- 
haps unfortunate,  that  the  metaphysical  and  physical 
lines  so  diverged,  but  he  who  can  so  unite  them  as  to 
evolve  a  conception  of  the  universe  that  shall  satisfy 
both  science  and  religion,  will  be  the  greatest  prophet 
of  the  Eternal  modern  times  has  known. 

Here  now  we  must  pause  and  sum  up  the  result  of 
our  historical  discussion.  The  idea  of  creation  by  the 
art  of  a  "  manlike  Artificer  "  did  not  produce  the  belief 
in  God.  That  idea  had  a  cosmic  and  scientific,  not  a 
theistic  and  religious  origin.  The  world  needed  God  to 
become  intelligible ;  God  did  not  need  the  world  to 
become  credible.  Men  were  Theists  before  they  were 
scientists,  believed  in  the  Being  of  God  before  they  had 
thought  of  either  a  creator  or  a  cause.     And  even  where 

6 


82        THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 

He  was  conceived  as  Creator,  He  was  not  conceived  as 
a  manufacturer  or  mechanic,  but  as  a  Maker  by  a  pro- 
cess as  natural  and  immanent  as  the  thinking,  the 
speech,  and  tlie  volition  of  man.  The  technic  theory  is 
in  no  way  essential  to  Theism,  can  as  little  destroy  it  as 
it  could  create  it.  Apologetic  Theists  have  been  its 
chief  representatives  and  exponents,  but  the  higher  and 
profounder  Theists  have  been  as  merciless  to  its  shallow 
and  contra-natural  artificiality  as  the  most  audacious 
evolutionists.  Our  metaphysical  physicists  may,  there- 
fore, be  allowed  to  handle  said  theory  as  severely  as  they 
like,  only  they  must  remember  that  it  is  neither  the 
parent  nor  the  child  of  Theism,  nor  in  any  degree  neces- 
sary to  its  life,  but  an  early  ancestor  of  their  own 
loved  cosmic  speculations — the  first  born  of  adolescent 
Philosophy. 

The  way  is  now  clear  for  the  discussion  of  the  next 
point — How  ought  the  relation  of  God  to  the  world  to 
be  conceived  ?  The  point  is  cardinal,  and  must  be 
made  prominent  and  luminous  if  Theism  and  science 
are  ever  to  get  honestly  face  to  face,  whether  for  con- 
test or  conciliation.  Two  things  are  clear,  (i)  Any 
interpretation  of  Nature  that  leaves  out  any  creative  and 
causal  energy  or  force  must  be  inadequate.  (2)  Any 
conception  of  God  that  leaves  out  His  active  qualities. 
His  energies  and  their  action,  must  be  insufficient.  But 
if  every  adequate  interpretation  of  Nature  must  include 
its  causal  force,  then  the  Theist  cannot  allow  God  and 
Nature  to  be  conceived  as  divided,  independent,  mutu- 
ally exclusive.  Science  seeks  to  explain  Nature,  but 
the  What  is  remains  inexplicable  without  the  What 
caused  to  be.  The  natura  natiirata  and  the  natura 
naturans  are  distinguishable  in  idea,  but  not  divisible  in 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION       83 

reality,  or  the  thought  that  represents  it ;  and  so,  as 
science  becomes  more  conscious  of  its  problems  and  its 
goal,  it  struggles  the  more  strenuously  towards  the 
region  where  physics  melt  into  metaphysics.  Scientist 
and  Theist  must,  therefore,  agree  in  this — neither  can 
so  distinguish  as  to  disjoin  Nature  and  its  Cause.  On 
the  other  hand,  to  conceive  God  as  purely  transcen- 
dental, as  outside  and  apart  from  the  universe,  is  to 
conceive  the  highest  mental  abstraction,  a  neuter  abso- 
lute or  infinite,  but  no  real  being,  no  positive  entity,  full 
of  energies  potential,  actual,  active.  Nature  realizes 
our  idea  of  God,  shows  His  energies  in  action.  His  life 
in  contact  with  ours.  But  so  to  conceive  the  relation  of 
God  and  Nature  is  to  conceive  the  world  not  as  outside 
or  beside  God,  but  as  in  Him  ;  to  conceive  no  here  for 
it,  no  there  for  Him,  but  He  everywhere  in  it,  it  every 
where  living,  moving,  and  existing  in  Him.  Transcend- 
ence is  not  thus  denied,  but  rather  affirmed.  God  does 
not  depend  on  the  world  for  His  being,  but  the  world  on 
Him.  It  is  not  the  cause  of  His  existence,  but  He  of 
its.  When  so  much  is  said,  absolute,  and  therefore 
transcendental,  being  is  predicated  of  God.  But  when 
He  is  conceived  as  a  Creator,  He  must  be  conceived  as 
related,  and  immanence  in  the  creation  not  only  ex- 
presses His  mode  of  creative  action,  but  is  the  only 
form  of  thought  in  which  the  antithetical  notions  of  the 
absolute  and  the  relative  can  be  reconciled.  Only  as 
the  Creator  is  conceived  as  immanent  can  the  creation 
be  natura  as  opposed  tofacfura,  or  the  region  of  things 
real  the  arena  and  manifestation  of  spirit. 

But,  if  God  and  Nature  stand  so  related  to  each 
other,  His  action  and  its  action  cannot  be  distinguished 
as  respectively   supernatural   and    natural.     If   He  is 


84       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION 

represented  as  outside,  a  spectator,  watching,  like  a 
mechanic,  the  movements  of  the  enormous  machine  He 
has  constructed  and  set  agoing,  then  all  His  action  must 
be  "interference,"  the  machine  must  be  stopped,  in 
whole  or  part,  to  let  Him  inside  to  repair,  or  change,  or 
enlarge  it.  But  so  to  conceive  the  matter  is  to  deify 
Nature  and  undeify  God,  make  it  not  only  independent 
of  its  Cause,  but  able  so  to  limit  as  to  annul  His  omni- 
presence and  omnipotence.  The  action  of  incorporate 
mind  is  not  supernatural.  It  can  express  whatever  it 
thinks,  feels,  wills,  in  and  through  its  physical  organism, 
and  no  one  ever  names  the  expression  "  interference." 
And  the  immanent  action  of  God  is  as  the  action  of 
incorporate  mind,  as  natural  and  as  necessary.  The 
supernatural  and  the  action  of  God  are  not  identical. 
Wherever  Nature  works  He  works.  There  is  no  point 
in  the  universe,  as  there  is  no  moment  of  time,  without 
His  presence,  or  shut  to  His  energies.  "  What  do  I  see 
in  Nature  ?  "  asked  Fenelon  ;  "  God — God  everywhere — 
God  alone."  And  a  far  greater  theologian,  who  had 
allowed  "  pie  hoc  posse  dici  naturam  esse  Deum,"*  only 
paraphrased  Scripture  when  he  said,  "  Spiritus  divinus, 
qui  ubique  diffusus  omnia  sustinet,  vegetat  et  vivificat  in 
coelo  et  in  terra."t 

But  hitherto  our  argument  has  been  concerned  with 
points  formal  and  preliminary ;  now  it  must  essay  harder 
and  more  positive  work.  Theism  needs  to  be  made  out 
not  simply  compatible  with  science,  but  necessary  to  the 
scientific  interpretation  of  the  universe.  The  false  and 
inconclusive  thinking  that  sets  God  and  Nature  in  oppo- 
sition and  inter-independence  has  to  be  brushed  aside, 

*  Calvin,  "  Instit.,"  lib  i.  v.  5.  f  lb.,  lib.  i.  xiii.  14. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       85 

but  only  that  Nature  may  the  more  evidently  appear,  as 
created,  inexplicable,  as  creative,  inconceivable,  without 
God. 

The  world  now  is — once  was  not ;  man  and  his  works 
are — once  were  not.  How  and  why  did  they  come  to 
be  ?  That  question  science  rather  delights  to  face  than 
seeks  to  evade.  Her  search  after  the  birth-time  of  the 
world  has  been  so  grandly  victorious  as  to  force  her  to 
attempt,  from  her  own  side  and  by  her  own  methods, 
the  perennial  inquiry  into  its  cause.  Nature  is  uniform, 
works  everywhere  from  within,  grows,  does  not  con- 
struct, bears  and  becomes,  does  not  manufacture,  and 
science,  as  her  interpreter,  expresses  her  method  or 
process  by  development,  evolution.  The  forms  of  inor- 
ganic nature  have  been  developed  by  the  operation  of 
necessary  mechanical  laws;  the  forms  of  organic  life 
have  been  evolved  by  the  operation  of  natural  forces. 
Variation,  the  struggle  for  existence,  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  explain  the  endless  varieties  of  organized  beings 
that  have  lived  and  are  living  upon  the  earth.  The 
inter-active  play  of  organism  and  environment,  the  crea- 
ture and  the  medium  in  which  it  lives,  has  resulted  in 
man  and  his  works. 

Now,  there  is  no  intention  here  of  either  questioning 
or  denying  evolution.  Modern  thought  is  too  deeply 
penetrated  with  it  to  allow  its  exclusion  from  any 
scientific  and  speculative  conception  of  the  universe. 
Hegel  lived  before  Darwin,  and  evolution  was  known 
to  metaphysics  long  before  it  was  adopted  and  natural- 
ized by  physics.  Nature  was  construed  from  tlie  ideal 
earlier  than  from  the  real  side.  And  the  construction 
was  comprehensive  too,  aimed  at  expressing  the  laws  of 
both  matter  and  mind,  at  explicating  the  histories  alike 


86       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION 

of  nature  and  spirit.  Evolution  in  science  need  not 
startle  us  any  more  than  evolution  in  philosophy.  But 
as  it  now  appears  in  science,  there  is  one  question  it 
inevitably  suggests — What  does  it  explain  or  mean  1  It 
is,  we  are  told,  a  theory  of  creation.  But  in  what  sense  ? 
a  modal  or  a  causal  theory  ?  Does  it  simply  explain  the 
method  by  which  things  came  to  be,  or  does  it  express  their 
cause  ?  Process  or  method  is  one  thing,  cause  another. 
Simplifying  the  process  is  not  the  same  thing  as  simplify- 
ing the  cause.  Granted  the  old  handicraft  theory  re- 
placed by  "  the  struggle  for  existence,"  in  which,  by 
"  survival  of  the  fittest,"  Nature  evolves  more  perfect 
forms  and  creates  new  species — what  then  t  Simply  the 
old  inevitable  question — Whence  the  ''  existence  "  to 
struggle,  the  ^'fittest"  to  survive,  the  Nature  which  is 
the  arena  of  contest,  whose  potencies,  too,  perform  so 
many  wonderful  things  t  The  new  creational  process 
simply  makes  us  confront  the  old  question  of  cause — 
does  no  more. 

It  is  necessary  to  emphasize  this  distinction  of  a 
modal  and  a  causal  theory  of  creation.  It  is  neither 
asserted  nor  assumed  that  our  more  distinguished 
evolutionists,  philosophic  and  scientific,  are  blind  to  it ; 
but  it  is  often  by  their  peculiar  presentment  subtly 
masked.  The  concluding  sentence  of  the  "  Origin  of 
Species  "  will  be  remembered  : 

"  There  is  grandeur  in  this  view  of  life,  with  its 
several  powers,  having  been  originally  breathed  by  the 
Creator  into  a  few  forms  or  one  ;  and  that  while  this 
planet  has  gone  cycling  on  according  to  the  fixed  law 
of  gravity,  from  so  simple  a  beginning  endless  forms, 
most  beautiful  and  most  wonderful,  have  been,  and  are 
being  evolved." 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       87 

But  it  depends  on  the  sense  read  into  "  beginning  " 
whether  it  can  be  called  "simple."  If  the  "few  forms 
or  one  "  be  regarded  in-  themselves,  then  they  may  be 
described  as  "  simple ;  "  but  if  they  are  regarded  as  the 
parents  of  the  future,  containing  "  the  promise  and 
potency  "  of  the  "  endless  forms  "  that  have  been  and 
are  to  be,  then  they  are  exceedingly  wonderful.  They 
are  simple  as  a  beginning,  but  not  as  a  cause.  A  pro- 
cess starts  at  the  lowest  point  and  culminates  in  the 
highest,  begins  with  the  least,  ends  with  the  most  perfect. 
But  the  lowest  does  not  explain  the  highest,  is  not  the 
sufficient  reason  of  its  existence.  The  cause  must  be 
adequate,  not  only  to  the  immediate,  but  to  the  ultimate 
effect,  must  continue  active  and  operative  to  the  end. 
If  Nature  is  called  in  to  qualify  beginning,  if  the  environ- 
ment is  made  to  co-operate  with  the  organism,  then  we 
are  but  made  to  see  a  subtle  complexity  in  the  process, 
that  exalts  our  sense  of  the  infinite  sufficiency,  the  uni- 
versal activity  and  exhaustible  energy  of  the  Cause. 
The  method  of  Nature  is  but  a  creation  or  result  of  the 
forces  that  have  made  Nature — their  way  of  working, 
and  only  as  these  fontal  or  creative  forces  are  known 
can  the  veil  be  lifted  from  the  mystery  of  being.  Even 
"  spontaneous  generation  "  would  not,  were  it  proved, 
be  an  ultimate  explanation.  As  "  generation  "  it  could 
not,  though  styled  "  spontaneous,"  be  held  uncaused,  and 
the  generative  force  would  remain  no  less  mysterious 
than  the  evolution  of  the  organism  from  the  seed. 
The  genesis  of  a  form  is  not  explained  when  it  is  shown 
how  it  came  to  be,  but  only  when  what  caused  it  to  be 
is  made  evident.  Evolution  has  done  the  one,  but  not 
the  other  ;  has  simplified  our  notion  of  the  creationaJ 
method,  but  not  of  the  creational  cause. 


SS       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 

Evolution,  then,  as  simply  a  modal,  cannot  be  used 
as  if  it  were  a  causal  theory  of  creation.  It  has  proved 
that  the  cosmic  cause  does  not  work  as  a  handicraftsman, 
but  has  not  disproved  its  being— has  rather  made  it,  if 
no  greater  necessity,  a  greater  certainty.  A  beginning 
is  now  indisputable,  demonstrable  fact.  Nature  is  not 
eternal,  is  created,  evolved, — but  by  what  or  whom  ? 
This  problem  has  of  late  greatly  exercised  our  scientific 
speculation.  In  dealing  with  it,  it  proceeds  in  a  very 
extraordinary  fashion.  It  builds  on  the  psychological 
foundation  of  Hume  a  structure  it  was  never  meant  to 
bear,  and  cannot  possibly  sustain.  Hume  saw  that  on 
the  principles  of  his  psychology  no  rational  inference 
could  be  drawn  as  to  the  being  of  anything  supra-sensible, 
and  he  drew  none ;  that  it  warranted  no  coherent  or 
constructive  theory  as  to  the  becoming  of  the  universe, 
and  he  attempted  none.  He  was  wise,  understood  his 
principles  and  his  terms,  and  went  no  farther  than  they 
allowed  him.  But  now  a  kindred  psychology  is  made  to 
do  very  different  work.  A  theory  of  knowing,  which 
affirms  that  we  can  never  reach  reality,  never  know  more 
than  appearance,  is  made  the  basis  of  a  theory  of  being 
which  claims  to  be  a  constructive  cosmic  philosophy. 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  holds  that  our  states  of  conscious- 
ness are  symbols  of  an  outside  reality  "  utterly  inscrutable 
in  Nature,  that  all  things  known  to  us  are  manifesta 
tions  of  the  Unknowable,"  of  a  "  Power  by  which  we 
are  acted  upon."*  These  manifestations,  he  thinks, 
divisible  into  two  great  classes,  called  by  some  "  impres- 
sions and  ideas ^'  but  by  himself  ''^  vivid  andy^/;?/"  mani- 
festations respectively.      The  vivid  "  occur  under  the 

*  "  First  Principles,"  pp.  99,  143.  . 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION.       89 

conditions  called  those  of  perception  ;  "  the  faint  "  occur 
under  the  conditions  known  as  those  of  reflection, 
or  memory,  or  imagination,  or  ideation."*  This  dis- 
tinction corresponds  to  the  division  between  subject  and 
object,  self  and  not-self.f  The  faint  manifestations  are 
the  ego  ;  the  vivid  manifestations  the  non-ego.  The 
faint  are  the  reflection  or  echo  of  the  vivid,  the  ego  the 
creation  of  the  non-ego,  which  determines  the  order  or 
succession  of  the  manifestations. 

Now,  here  is  a  very  admirable  basis  for  a  philosopher 
either  of  nescience  or  skepticism  but  for  little  else.  If 
we  are  but  ""faint  manifestations  "  of  an  ego  created  out 
of  the  "  vivid  manifestations  "  of  an  "  inscrutable  reality," 
an  "  incomprehensible  power,"  then,  as  the  creative 
manifestations  are  but  appearances,  the  created  can 
hardly  be  known  reality,  can  certainly  be  no  better 
known  than  what  it  reflects.  The  ego  becoming  thus 
as  inscrutable  and  unknowable  as  the  non-ego,  there 
remain  two,  and  only  two,  alternative  conclusions — 
either  philosophic  ignorance  or  philosophic  doubt — 
either  man  can  never  know  the  truth,  or  there  is  no  truth 
for  man  to  know.  But  Mr,  Spencer  accepts  neither  con- 
clusion. He  defies  both  his  ontology  and  psychology. 
He  translates  his  unknowable  reality  by  a  scien- 
tific term  :  he  works  his  manifestations  into  scientific 
ideas.  His  absolute  becomes  "  absolute  force."  "By 
the  persistence  of  force  we  really  mean  the  persistence 
of  some  cause  which  transcends  our  knowledge  and 
conception.  In  other  words,  asserting  the  persistence 
of  force  is  asserting  an  unconditioned  reality,  without 
beginning  or  end."|     Now,  here  is  a  step  such  as  was 

*  *' First  Principles,"  p.  144.       t  Id.,  p.  154.       J  Id.,  p.  192. 


go       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION. 

never  taken  by  hero  of  fairy  tale  or  Arabian  Nights 
gifted  with  magic  boots.  The  Unknowable  is  named, 
and  made  by  its  name  to  lose  its  nature,  assume  a  new 
character  and  functions,  and  enter'  a  circle  of  very  ex- 
clusive, if  not  very  definite  ideas.  A  cause  that  "  tran- 
scends our  knowledge  "  is  here  transformed  into  a  cause 
that  does  not.  Mr.  Spencer  may  mean  only  to  assert 
an  "  unconditioned  reality,"  but  he  does  it  in  terms  that 
change  his  meaning,  that  connote  ideas  that  overpower 
and  extinguish  the  one  expressed  by  the  original  phrase. 
And  the  connotation  proves  too  strong  for  Mr.  Spencer 
himself.  Just  as  the  term  force  revolutionizes  the  con- 
ception of  the  Unknowable,  so  it,  in  turn,  transmuted 
into  forces,  beguiles  the  physicist  into  the  fancy  that  he 
is  walking  in  the  to  him  sober  and  certain  paths  of  ob- 
servation and  experiment,  while,  in  truth,  he  is  soaring 
in  the  heaven  of  metaphysics.  If  Nature  and  man  are 
alike  the  manifestations  of  an  inscrutable  Power,  then 
Nature  and  man,  interpreted  in  the  terms  of  matter,  mo- 
tion, and  force,  are  misinterpreted,  and  the  attempt  at  a 
cosmic  science  but  the  delusive  appearance  of  knowledge 
where  only  ignorance  is  possible. 

Mr.  Spencer's  philosophy  is  by  pre-eminence  the  phi- 
losophy of  evolution  ;  and  has  supplied  both  basis  and  ' 
material  for  almost  all  our  recent  scientific  speculation. 
He  has  created  the  fashion,  now  so  common  among 
English  men  of  science,  of  rounding  off  their  enquiries 
and  speculations  with  mysterious,  perhaps  mystifying 
allusions  to  the  Unknowable,  the  inscrutable  Power,  the 
unconditioned  Reality,  the  unknown  Cause  manifested 
in  the  universe.  The  fashion  has  its  significance. 
Science  is  growing  conscious  of  the  little  it  can  do  to 
explicate  and  solve  our  first  and  fundamental  problem, 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION       9 1 

and  has  found  a  formula  in  which  it  can  either  humbly 
or  grandiloquently  confess  the  same,  without  being  in- 
conveniently  committed  to  anything.  But  for  this  very 
reason  it  is  necessary  to  insist  that  the  arch  by  which 
Mr.  Spencer  would  span  the  gulf  between  the  unknown 
Cause  and  the  persistent  Force  wants  its  keystone. 
Capital  letters  play  a  great  part  in  his  philosophy. 
They  help  to  reveal  his  inscrutable,  personalize  his  force 
and  forces,  and  allow  the  mind  to  glide  into  and  out  of 
meanings  in  the  happiest  and  most  unconscious  ways. 
But  these  delicate  and  excellent  ambiguities  cannot  be 
always  victorious.  The  translation  of  the  unknown  into 
the  known  by  the  interpreters,  matter,  motion,  and  force, 
though  a  valiant  and  even  audacious  feat,  can  hardly  be 
successful  if  there  are  phenomena  in  the  universe  these 
terms  fail  to  express. 

What  scientific  speculation  demands  is  a  sufficient 
reason*  for  what  is  ;  but  by  an  unreasonable  adherence 
to  its  own  terms,  where  they  are  utterly  inapplicable,  it 
misses  what  it  demands.  You  cannot  call  that  a  reason 
which  is  by  its  very  name  placed  outside  the  categories 
of  thought,  nor  does  it  become  one  by  being  translated 
into  a  term  which,  while  physical,  denotes  what  is  con- 
fessedly assumed  and  indemonstrable.  Professor  Tyn- 
dall's  "  matter "  ceased  under  his  own  analysis  to  be 
material,  became  "  an  outside  entity  "  whose  "  real 
nature  we  can  never  know,"  which,  while  manifested  in 
"  the  process  of  evolution,"  must  remain  "  a  power  abso- 
lutely inscrutable  to  the  intellect  of  man."  He  added, 

*  Our  English  philosophy  has  been  since  Hume  so  hopelessly 
bewildered  and  obfuscated  in  its  notion  of  cause,  that,  perhaps, 
though  for  an  opposite  reason,  it  is  better  to  follow  M.  Comte,  and 
leave  it  in  discussions  of  this  kind  unused. 


92 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 


with  most  delightful  naiVet^,  "  there  is,  you  will  observe, 
no  very  rank  materialism  here."  Of  course  not.  The 
only  material  thing  was  the  name,  and  perhaps  the 
chivalrous  faith  that  could  believe  it  applicable  and 
relevant.  And  the  name  in  no  way  simplified  the  idea 
of  creation,  for  the  confession  had  to  be  made,  "  It  is  by 
the  operation  of  an  insoluble  mystery  that  life  is  evolved, 
species  differentiated,  and  mind  unfolded  from  their  pre- 
potent elements  in  the  immeasurable  past."  The  mys- 
tery of  creation  is  not  vanquished  by  the  attempt  to 
express  it  in  physical  terms.  The  terms  so  break  down 
as  to  foil  the  attempt.  The  unknown  Being  which 
science  has  first  to  postulate  and  then  translate  into  its 
own  terms,  is  a  conception  less  coherent  and  rational 
than  the  theistic.  For  matter,  in  any  sense  that  leaves 
it  matter,  can  never  be  the  sufficient  reason  of  a  universe 
like  ours.  That  reason  must  be  expressible  in  th3  forms 
and  terms  supplied  by  the  last  and  highest  rather  than 
the  first  and  lowest  developments  in  Nature.  In  dis- 
cussing a  process — evolution — the  beginning  is  the  point 
of  prime  importance  ;  but  in  determining  the  character 
of  the  cause — the  creative  power — it  is  the  end.  The 
beginning  marks  the  process  as  a  descent  or  ascent ;  but 
the  end,  by  exhibiting  the  highest  product,  determines 
the  kind  and  quality  of  the  producing  factors.  This  is 
peculiarly  true  in  a  case  like  the  present.  For  evolution 
can  allow  no  element  to  steal  into  the  effect  that  can- 
not be  traced  to  the  cause.  What  is  evolved  in  the 
one  was  involved  in  the  other.  What  the  method  or 
Nature  brings  out  in  the  conclusion,  it  must  have  found 
in  the  cause,  the  former  being  only  the  explication  of 
the  latter.  On  this  principle,  mind,  as  the  latest  and 
highest  result  of  the  creative  process,  cannot  have  been 
absent  from  the  creative  cause. 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION.       93 

Man  is  the  interpreter  of  Nature,  but  he  is  also  its  in- 
terpretation. That  does  not  mean  he  is  its  final  cause, 
but  it  means  he  is  the  highest  revelation  of  its  creative 
power.  If  we  interpret  the  latter  in  "  the  terms  of  matter, 
motion,  and  force,"  we  must  interpret  in  the  same  terms 
the  phenomena  of  mind  and  society.  Now  these  are 
not  interpreted  when  the  possible  or  probable  descent 
and  development  of  man  are  traced.  We  have  to  do 
not  simply  with  thfe  becoming  of  a  fact,  but  with  the 
fact  as  become.  And  the  fact  is  here  a  mind,  the  con- 
sciousness,  in  which  both  self  and  the  universe  are 
revealed.  It  therefore  must  be  interrogated  as  to  itself, 
as  to  what  it  knows,  as  to  the  sense  in  which  it  can  be 
said  to  know  at  all,  as  to  whether  its  powers,  its  thoughts, 
its  emotions,  its  acts  and  their  qualities,  can  be  interpret- 
ed in  the  specified  terms.  Then  the  many  minds  in 
the  present  are  heirs  of  the  results  achieved  by  the  many 
minds  of  the  past.  Mind  has  a  history — can  it  be 
written  "in  the  terms  of  matter,  motion,  and  force"? 
Whatever  interprets  it  must  interpret  the  systems  it  has 
built,  the  institutions  it  has  created,  the  religions  it  has 
deposited  and  developed,  the  evil  it  has  done,  the  good 
it  has  achieved,  the  progress  it  has  made.  These  very 
words,  "  evil,"  "  good,"  "  progress,"  "  done,"  "  achieved  " 
"  made,"  start  many  questions  that  affect  our  interpre- 
tation of  the  cosmic  cause.  If  man  be  the  mere  product  of 
mechanical  and  necessary  forces,  they  must  rule  him, 
but  where  they  rule  there  m.ay  be  a  break-down,  but  can 
be  no  evil,  an  effective  or  resultful  motion,  but  can  be 
no  good.  Are  the  laws  which  have  governed  the  develop- 
ment or  education  of  humanity  mechanical  ?  If  so,  can 
moral  terms  be  used  to  express  results  that  must  be  as 
purely  mechanical  as  any  obtained  in  the  earliest  stages 


94       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 

of  the  creative  process  ?  If  so,  how  did  evolution  ac- 
complish so  extraordinary  a  revolution  in  the  nature  of 
the  actor  and  the  quality  of  his  acts  ?  Can  the  terms 
righteous,  benevolent,  wise,  be  applied  to  men  and 
nations  and  be  denied  to  the  Power  that  has  shaped 
human  destinies  ?  or,  in  other  words,  can  man  be  in 
any  sense  a  moral  being  without  having  his  development 
governed  by  moral  laws  ?  Does  the  will  count  for  any- 
thing in  the  sphere  of  action  ?  If  man  is  to  any  extent 
or  in  any  real  sense  free,  he  cannot  be  the  mere  product 
of  molecular  action ;  if  he  is  the  pure  creature  of 
primordial  molecules,  his  actions  must  be  as  much 
necessitated  as  the  movements  of  the  planets,  or  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides,  and  all  his  thoughts,  religions, 
institutions,  achievements,  nothing  more  than  "  the  trans- 
ferred activities  of  his  molecules."  But  this  is  a  point 
on  which  consciousness  has  a  right  to  speak  ;  and  Mr. 
Spencer  tells  us  that  belief  of  it  is  a  necessary  condition 
of  all  knowledge.  Skepticism  on  one  point  here  involves 
skepticism  on  all.  If  a  man  doubted  his  own  conscious- 
ness, he  must  doubt  everything,  and  science  is  impos- 
sible. But  if  consciousness  must  be  held  veracious  when 
it  testifies  to  the  existence  of  an  outer  world,  the  obliga- 
tion to  believe  it  is  much  greater  when  it  speaks  to  what 
is  known,  not  in  symbol,  but  in  itself.  Now,  if  there  is 
one  point  on  which  the  consciousness  of  universal  man 
as  expressed  in  universal  language  has  been  more 
unanimous  than  another,  it  has  been  in  testifying  to  his 
freedom,  and  because  of  it  in  judging  as  to  the  character 
and  quality  of  his  actions.  One  who  believes  the 
veracity  of  consciousness  on  other  points  cannot  logical- 
ly deny  it  here.  But  if  man  be  free,  he  cannot  be 
interpreted  in  ''  the  terms  of  matter,  motion,  and  force.*' 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION. 


95 


Physical  necessity  can  never  be  the  equivalent  of  moral 
freedom.  But  if  man  cannot  be  so  interpreted,  neither 
can  the  Power  that  made  him.  Man  is  the  image  of 
his  Maker.  The  lake  may  show  the  mountain  hid  in 
clouds,  or  the  star  sleeping  in  the  silent  heaven,  and  the 
shadow  reveals  the  reality,  known  to  be  real  were  it  only 
by  its  image. 

Mind  in  interpreting  the  universe  cannot  escape  from 
itself,  must  begin  with  thought,  and  what  thought  sup- 
plies and  implies.  The  interpretation  of  Nature  is  the 
interpretation  of  thought  by  thought,  the  translation  of 
ideas  out  of  a  mystic,  unspoken,  unwritten  speech  into 
the  speech  of  men.  The  true  and  beautiful  thought 
that  lay  at  the  basis  of  Berkeley's  idealism  was  this — 
Nature  is  a  visual  language,  its  phenomena  the  visual 
words  in  which  one  mind  speaks  to  another.  So  under- 
stood it  is  the  expression  and  vehicle  of  intelligence,  an 
orderly  because  a  rational  system.  Science  is  a  mirror 
held  up  to  Nature,  and  the  reason  science  exhibits  but 
reflects  the  reason  Nature  embodies.  The  intelligible 
implies  intelligence  ;  what  can  be  construed  presupposes 
mind.  So  much  every  rationally  conceivable  theory  as 
to  the  origin  and  being  of  the  universe,  even  such  as 
stand  to'  each  other  as  antithesis  to  thesis,  must  ex- 
plicitly or  implicitly  recognize.  The  reasonable  thing 
in  the  old  artificial  Theism  was  not  its  formal  technic, 
but  its  recognition  of  reason  as  the  source  and  end  of 
the  creation.  The  substance  of  Spinoza  had  thought  to 
balance  expansion  as  a  mode  of  being.  The  Natur  of 
Goethe,  ever  building  and  ever  destroying,  eternal  life 
and  eternal  change,  never  permanent  yet  never  fugitive, 
without  speech  yet  creating  the  tongues  by  which  she 
speaks  and  the  hearts  by  which  she  feels,  ever  perfect 


gS       THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULA  TION. 

yet  never  complete,  is  but  Deity  externalized  and  active. 
The  Universum  of  Strauss,  personal  qualities  working 
impersonally  in  Nature  and  man,  is  simply  the  cosmos 
invested  with  certain  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
attributes  of  the  being  men  call  God.  The  Unbewusstes 
of  Hartmann  is  only  a  bad  attempt  to  depersonalize  a 
person,  with  the  worst  possible  results  as  to  the  meaning 
and  end  of  the  world,  the  hopes  and  dignity  of  man. 
Darwin's  evolution,  too,  lives  and  wins  its  way  by  the 
conception  of  a  nature  which,  subtly  penetrated  by  per- 
sonal attributes,  can  in  whole  and  in  all  her  parts, 
contrive,  struggle,  preserve,  develop,  and  do  the  million 
things  possible  only  to  perceiving  intellect  and  active 
will.  Thought  cannot  escape  from  mind  in  the  universe, 
because  the  universe  interpreted  is  thought  interpreted 
and  realized. 

But  it  is  time  this  discussion  was  ended.  The  con- 
viction with  which  it  was  started  has  gone  on  deepening 
with  every  step,  that  the  grand  theistic  problem  of  our 
time  is,  not  how  to  prove  the  existence  of  God,  but  how 
to  conceive  His  relation  to  the  world.  That  problem 
demands  earnest  and  honest  thought  as  well  as  honest 
and  earnest  discussion.  The  discussion  has  turned 
hitherto  on  a  false  issue,  because  on  a  formal  rather 
than  a  material  question.  There  lies  in  all  our  scientific 
speculation  a  latent  or  blank  conception  of  God  only 
waiting  to  be  drawn  out  or  filled  up.  The  Unknowable, 
the  inscrutable  Power,  is  like  a  dead  mask  concealing  a 
living  face,  a  ghastly  eye-socket  without  the  eye.  Let 
the  mask  be  removed  that  the  face  may  be  seen  as  the 
face  of  the  living  God.  If  we  can  rightly  conceive  Him, 
we  shall  see  united  into  one  the  Architect  of  the  atoms 
and  the  Parent  of  the  minds  that  make  up  the  universe, 


THEISM  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SPECULATION. 


97 


a  Being  that  may  complete  and  please  science  while 
satisfying  religion.  And  with  these  reconciled  and 
formed  into  a  holy  and  ministrant  sisterhood,  man 
happy  in  the  possession  of  a  wholly  harmonized  nature, 
the  intellect  no  more  harassing  the  heart,  or  the  heart 
reproaching  the  intellect,  will  live  untroubled  under  a 
heaven  where  the  sun  of  knowledge  shines  in  light,  and 
the  moon  of  faith  walks  in  beauty.  And  when  in  those 
peaceful  days  man  feels  joy  in  God,  he  will  read  in  it  a 
response  to  God's  complacency  in  man. 

"  Freundlos  war  der  Grosse  Weltenmeister, 
Fiihlte  mangel,  darum  Schuf  Er  Geister, 

Sel'ge  Spiegel  seiner  Seligkeit. 
Fand  das  hochste  Wesen  schon  kein  Gleiches 
Aus  das  Kelch  des  Ganzen  Geisterreiches 
Schaiimt  ihm  die  Unendlichkeit." 
7 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALI  TV,  9  ^ 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 
PART  L 

INTRODUCTORY. 


'HPHE  immortality  of  the  soul,  though  a  primary,  can 
hardly  be  considered  a  primitive  religious  belief. 
It  involves  conceptions  at  once  too  abstract  and  positive 
to  be  intelligible  to  primitive  man,  and  what  he  cannot 
conceive  he  cannot  believe. 

The  belief  in  a  life  after  death  has,  indeed,  been  co- 
eval, or  nearly  so,  with  religion,  but  this  differs  from  the 
belief  in  immortality  as  a  Natural  or  Physical  Polytheism 
differs  from  a  Spiritual  or  Monotheistic  faith.  The 
belief  grows  up  to  satisfy  a  slowly  evolved  but  deeply 
seated  need  of  man,  and  marks  a  development  in  his 
religion  almost  equal  to  a  revolution,  or  the  creation  of 
a  new  faith.  The  human  mind  then  passes  out  of  the 
mythical  or  creative  into  the  metaphysical  or  deductive 
stage,  and  religion  ceases  to  be  a  simple  worship  ex- 
pressive of  a  people's  instincts  and  impulses,  and  be- 
comes a  faith,  shaping  its  institutions  and  manners, 
laws  and  literature,  thoughts  and  hopes. 

A  religion  never  assumes  or  exercises  its  full  author- 
it}'',  never  awakens  or  satisfies  the  highest  hopes  of 
man,  until  it  can  command  obedience  here,  and  reward 
it  with  everlasting  happiness  hereafter.  And  this  neither 
implies   nor   rests   on   any   religious    utilitarianism,   in 


T  oo  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

Leigh  Hunt's  phrase,  other  -  world  Vm&ss,  but  on  the 
simple  fact  that  the  immortal  nature  of  man  demands  a 
religion  which  can  evoke  and  satisfy  his  aspirations 
after  immortality. 

It  is  not  the  design  of  this  essay  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion of  Immortality  either  with  or  against  our  modern 
philosophies.  Such  a  discussion  would  be  in  a  great 
measure  superfluous.  Determine  the  fundamental  con- 
ception or  principle  of  any  philosophy,  and  its  relation 
to  the  belief  in  question  is  ascertained.  But  the  dis- 
cussion of  a  secondary  or  inferential  position  is  useless 
while  the  primary  is  untouched.  Skepticism  can  simply, 
with  Hume,  deny,  that  there  are  any  grounds  to  warrant 
the  belief.*  Materialism,  resolving  thought  into  a 
movement  of  matter,  can  only  regard  death  as  the 
destruction  of  the  individual,  and  prefer  everlasting  an- 
nihilation to  everlasting  iife.f  Positivism,  allowing 
spirit  no  place  in  its  system,  denies  immortality  to  man, 
but  confers  it  on  humanity.^  Pantheism  can  grant  no 
immortality  to  the  individual,  but  promises  to  him 
either,  as  a  mode  of  the  divine  thought  or  essence, 
eternity,§  or  an  immortality  which  is  realized  by  becom- 
ing in  the  midst  of  the  finite  one  with  the  infinite  and 

*  "Philosophical  Works,"  vol.  iv.  pp.  547  fl.  (ed.  1854). 

t  Buchner,  "Kraft  und  Stoff,"  p.  212.  Of  course  there  was  an 
older  and  less  consistent  materialism  represented  by  Dr.  Priestley, 
which  tried  to  maintain  itself  alongside  a  belief  in  a  future  state  of 
rewards  and  punishments.  But  it  is  now  effete ;  its  positions  were 
too  untenable  to  please  these  thoroughgoing  days. 

X  Mill's  "Comte  and  Positivism,"  pp.  135,  152. 

§  Spinoza,  "Ethices,"  Part  V.,  Prop,  xxiii.  See  also  Van  del 
Linde,  "  Spinoza,  Seine  Lehre  u.  deren  erste  Nachwirkung  in  Hoi 
land,"  pp.  50  and  75. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY.  i  o  i 

being  in  every  moment  eternal,"*  or  a  return  from  rela- 
tive to  absolute  being  through  the  knowledge  that  iden- 
tifies subject  and  object.!  Theism  in  all  its  forms  can 
as  little  dispense  with  the  immortality  of  man  as  with 
the  personality  of  God.  Both  are  as  necessary  to  pure 
Deism  as  to  orthodox  Christianity — were,  indeed,  the 
articles  in  the  creed  of  the  older  English  Deism,  by 
which  it  stood,  with  which  it  fell,  when,  in  its  exhausted 
old  age,  it  had  to  confront  at  home  the  skepticism  of 
Hume,  abroad  the  full-grown  sensualism  of  France  and 
the  highborn  Transcendentalism  of  Germany. $ 

*  Schleiermacher,  "  Reden  iiber  Religion,"  Werke,  i.  p.  264  (ed. 
1843).     Schelling,  "Philosophic  u.  Religion,"  pp.  71  ff. 

t  Caro,  "  L'Idee  de  Dieu,"  pp.  370  ff.  Hegel  expressed  himselt 
very  rarely  and  cautiously  concerning  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
though  he  said  very  decisively,  when  charged  by  Schubart  with  deny- 
ing it,  that  in  his  philosophy  the  spirit  was  raised  above  all  the  cate- 
gories which  comprehended  decay,  destruction,  and  death  (Erdmann, 
"Gesch.  der  Philos.,"  ii.  p.  650).  The  negative  principles  which 
lay  in  the  Hegelian  philosophy  were  held  long  in  the  background, 
but  appeared  distinctly  enough  in  Richter's  "  Lehre  von  den  Letzen 
Dingen"  (1833),  and  his  "  Neue  Unsterblichkeitslehre  (1833). 
Feuerbach's  immortality  of  historical  remembrance  and  Schopen- 
hauer's nihilism  were,  so  far  as  our  belief  is  concerned,  coarser  and 
more  positive  in  their  negations. 

X  Erdmann  remarks  ("  Gesch.  der  Philos.,"  ii.  p.  650),  with 
special  reference  to  Fichte,  in  the  first  period  of  his  philosophic 
thought,  that  the  immortality  of  man  was  for  the  eighteenth  century 
the  dogma  par  excellence.  It  was  so  because  philosophy  was  then 
pre-eminently  theistic.  From  the  rise  of  English  deism  in  Lord 
Herbert  of  Cherbury,  to  Rousseau  in  France,  and  Kant  and  Les- 
sing  in  Germany,  theistic  thinkers  as  a  rule  held  the  immortality  of 
man  to  be  as  necessary  to  a  religion  as  the  being  of  God.  Kant 
reverses  the  argument  of  Warburton,  and  maintains  the  Legation 
of  Moses  to  be  un-divine,  because  without  the  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality {'*  Relig.  innerh.  d.  Grenzen  d.  bios.  Vernunft,"  Werke  vi. 
301,  Hartenstein's  ed.).  For  Lessing's  views,  see  "Die  Erzieh.  d. 
Menschengesch,"  §§  22  fT.     See  also  Wolfenbiit.,  "  Frag.  Viertes." 


1 02  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

Philosophy  did  not  create  the  behef  in  immortality, 
and  acknowledges  or  denies  its  validity  just  as  it  is  or 
is  not  involved  in  its  own  fundamental  principles. 
Speculative  thought  has  said  all  that  it  can  say  against 
the  belief,  and  it  still  lives  ;  has  said,  too,  all  that  it  can 
say  for  it,  and  it  has  not  died.  The  old  arguments,  met- 
aphysical, ethical,  teleological,  have  been  exhausted,  ad- 
vanced, answered,  confirmed,  repelled,  in  almost  every 
possible  form,  and  now  thought  must  turn  from  the 
high  road  of  abstract  speculation,  and  study  human  be- 
lief as  expressed  in  human  religion.  Religion,  or  rather 
its  philosophic  theology,  may  now  become  a  science  as 
purely  inductive  as  any  of  the  physical  sciences.  The 
now  possible  analysis  of  the  faiths  of  the  world,  if  ac- 
companied by  a  searching  analysis  of  the  faculties  of 
the  mind,  will  hand  over  to  thought  our  primary  and 
necessary  religious  ideas,  which,  as  ultimate  religious 
truths,  constitute  in  their  synthesis  the  foundation  of  the 
universal  and  ideal  religion  of  man. 

On  this  ground,  not  as  a  dogma  of  religion,  or  a 
doctrine  of  philosophy,  but  as  a  specifically  human 
property*  involved  in  the  very  nature  of  man,  evolved 
in  the  evolution  of  that  nature,  the  belief  in  immortality 
needs  to  be  discussed.  How  does  it  arise,  and  why  ? 
What  is  its  earliest  form  ?  What  the  law  or  principle 
of  its  evolution  ?  What  are  the  final  forms  it  assumes? 
Why  one  rather  than  another  ?  .The  materials  for  this 
discussion  are,  in  one  respect,  ample  enough.  Scholars 
have  supplied  us  with  exhaustive  and  accurate  exposi- 
tions of  the  several  cultured  religions,  ancient  and 
modern,  and   so   with    the  means   of  comparing  their 

*  Dr.  Theodor  Waitz,  "Anthropologic  der  Natur-Volker,** 
i.  325. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY.  1 03 

earlier  and  simpler  with  their  later  and  more  complex 
elements,  and  this  comparison  may  help  us  to  discover 
the  principle  of  their  growth,  or  the  reason  of  their 
specific  development.  Then  the  several  faiths  can  be 
compared  with  each  other,  and  what  is  accidental  and 
what  essential  in  each  may  thus  be  determined.  Ethno- 
graphers, too,  like  the  late  Dr.  Theodor  Waitz,  Mr.  Ty- 
lor  and  Sir  John  Lubbock,*  have  collected  an  immense 
mass  of  information  as  to  the  beliefs  of  savage  and 
primitive  peoples.  But  each  of  these  authors  is  so  ab- 
sorbed in  the  search  after  superficial  resemblances  as 
often  to  miss  fundamental  differences,  and  the  very 
comprehensiveness  which  they  aim  at  forces  them  to 
overlook  the  course  of  genetic  development  in  the  cul- 
tured religions.f  Now,  it  may  perhaps  throw  some 
light  upon  the  growth  of  religions  thought  in  general, 
the  formation  of  the  cultured  religions  in  particular, 
and  the  progress  of  a  people  in  civilization,  if  we  can 
trace,  though  but  in  outline,  the  origin  and  evolution  of 
the  belief  in  immortality  among  two  kindred  but  very 
different  peoples,  the  Hindus  and  the  Greeks.  On  this 
point  their  religions,  while  starting  from  a  common 
goal,  reach  the  point  of  sharpest  contrast,  and  so  can 
be  most  instructively  studied. 

*  The  views  of  these  ethnographers  on  our  present  subject  will 
be  found,  "  Anthropologie  der  Natur-Volker,"  i.  325,  ii.  191  £f. ; 
411  £f.,  and  very  frequently ;  "  Primitive  Culture,"  chaps,  xii.  xiii.; 
♦♦  Origin  of  Civilization,"  138  ff. 

t  Mr.  Tylor  admits  that  the  early  Aryans  did  not  believe  in 
transmigration  ("Prim.  Cult,  ii.  8),  and  his  theory  of  the  origin  of 
the  belief  (pp.  14,  15)  certainly  cannot  apply  to  the  Hindus.  The 
men  of  the  Vedic  age  had  been  long  out  of  that  savage  state  of 
thought  to  which  alone  Mr.  Tylor's  theory  is  applicable. 


104  '^^^  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


II. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  necessary  to  glance  here  at  the 
origin  and  evolution  of  the  Belief.  Death  as  annihila- 
tion is  a  notion  as  little  intelligible  to  a  primitive  or 
undeveloped  mind  as  immortality.  A  child  cannot 
understand  death  as  loss  of  being,  cannot  imagine  the 
dead  as  otherwise  than  still  alive.  It  thinks  of  them  as 
existing  somewhere,  as  doing  something;  and  neither 
the  lifeless  body,  nor  the  grave,  nor  the  burial,  can 
break  their  simple  faith.  Wordsworth's  "  Little  Maid  " 
is  a  type  of  the  child  mind  the  world  over,  and  its  be- 
lief, translated  into  the  language  of  man,  becomes  a 
sublime  "  Ode  to  Immortality."  To  the  instincts  of  a 
living  man,  who  has  not  yet  learned  to  reason  either 
from  the  facts  of  experience  or  the  data  of  conscious- 
ness, death  cannot  suggest  annihilation,  because  anni- 
hilation is  a  thought  too  abstract  and  repugnant  to 
these  instincts  to  be  either  intelligible  or  credible.  In 
such  a  man  faith  is  stronger  than  sight ;  he  can  con- 
ceive and  understand  life,  but  not  its  utter  negation. 
If  he  thinks  of  the  dead,  he  thinks  of  them  as  living — 
the  very  attempt  to  represent  them  in  thought  is  an  at- 
tempt to  represent  living,  not  dead  men. 

But,  while  the  instincts  of  primitive  mind  refuse  to 
conceive  the  dead  as  non-existent,  a  double  incapacity 
prescribes  the  limits  and  form  of  the  only  conception 
possible  to  it, — the  incapacity  to  conceive  other  than 
embodied  being,  and  the  incapacity  to  comprehend  un- 
limited duration.  In  other  words,  the  undeveloped 
mind  cannot  conceive  the  abstract  notion  of  spirit  and 
the  abstract  notion  of  immortality,  or  endless  duration 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


JOS 


of  being.  Hence  the  earliest  notions  of  the  future 
represent  it  as  a  shadowy  copy  of  the  present ;  and  its 
duration  is  measured  by  memory,  is  not  made  measure- 
less by  hope — /.  ^.,  the  conception  attaches  itself  to  the 
recollection  of  the  dead  rather  than  to  the  expectations 
of  the  living.  But  notwithstanding  these  limitations, 
the  belief  is  a  real  belief  in  immortality,  so  far  as  it  is 
possible  to  a  child-mind.  The  seed  is  here,  as  it  ought 
to  be  ;  the  natural  and  necessary  growth  of  mind  will 
transform  the  seed  into  both  flower  and  fruit. 

But,  while  the  belief  in  the  future  life  springs  out  of 
what  we  must  call,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  an  in- 
stinct, its  evolution,  alike  as  to  the  time  occupied  and 
the  order  of  thought  observed,  depends  on  the  devel- 
opment of  the  mental  faculties,  as  in  their  turn  at  once 
conditioning  and  conditioned  by  the  history  and  situa- 
tion of  the  people.  In  general,  since  the  belief  attaches 
itself  to  the  past  rather  than  to  the  future,  it  gathers 
round  the  persons  of  the  fathers,  and  fancy,  aided  by 
memory,  peoples  the  realm  of  the  dead  with  the  shades 
of  renowned  ancestors,  whose  society  and  fellowship  be- 
come before  long  objects  of  intense  desire  to  the  living. 
Then,  alongside  the  admiration  rendered  to  the  fathers, 
ethical  ideas  are  evolved,  and  the  conditions  on  which 
a  man  is  granted  or  denied  admittance  to  the  circle  of 
ancestral  heroes,  contain  the  germinal  notion  of  a  state 
of  reward  and  retribution.  Then,  thought,  gradually 
accustomed  to  conceive  the  dead  as  living,  to  see  in 
nature  life  emerge  uninjured  from  death,  works  out  an 
abstract  doctrine,  a  theory  of  form  and  life,  body  and 
soul,  which,  while  committing  the  one  to  death  and 
dissolution,  assigns  the  other  to  independent  and  con- 
tinued life.     And   these   theories  become  in  turn  sup^ 


Io6  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

ports  of  the  very  belief  which  evoked  them.  The  hope 
of  a  future  life  turns  back  for  encouragement  to  the 
very  metaphysic  itself  had  created.  And  as  the  meta- 
physic  is  often  fanciful  and  absurd,  the  evidence  is  as 
often  weaker  than  the  belief.  The  one  is  the  creation 
of  crude  and  premature  speculation,  the  other  the  ut- 
terance of  a  great  human  instinct. 

While  the  process  of  evolution  is  conditioned  by  the 
general  development  of  the  national  mind,  the  specific 
form  under  which  immortality  is  conceived  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  conditioned  by  the  idea  of  God.  The  idea 
formed  of  the  divine  nature  determines  that  formed  of 
the  human.  The  two  ideas  develop  side  by  side,  con- 
stitute, indeed,  the  two  poles  or  sides  of  the  same 
thought.  While  the  idea  of  God  remains  so  inchoate 
as  to  admit  the  limitations  and  multiplicities  of  Poly- 
theism, it  does  not  and  can  not  involve  as  a  necessity, 
either  of  reason  or  faith,  any  specific  form  of  the  belief 
in  immortality. 

But  as  the  religion  generates  a  theology,  as  thought 
comes  to  conceive  God  as  the  One  related  to  the  Many, 
as  the  single  source  of  the  manifold  creation,  man  is 
led  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same  principles  to  con- 
ceive and  formulate  his  faith  in  his  own  immortal  ex- 
istence. This  does  not  happen  all  at  once,  but  is  the 
result  of  slow  and  not  always  conscious  movements  of 
the  mind.  Principles,  struck  out  by  single  intellects  or 
created  by  general  tendencies,  rise  within  every  poly- 
theism, lift  it  out  of  the  physical  stage,  are  made,  either 
by  conscious  mental  action  or  unconscious  mental 
growth,  to  become  inimical  to  it,  and  either  abolish  the 
ancient  religion,  or  erect  by  its  side  a  distinct  and  sup- 
plementary worship,  under  the  form  of  mysteries,  or, 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY.  1 07 

while  sparing  it  as  a  mode  of  worship,  substitute  for  the 
mythical  creations,  which  were  its  original  constituents, 
a  body  of  reflective  or  speculative  doctrines.  If  the 
prelusive  thought  had  been  tending  to  grasp  a  single 
universal  and  indestructible  principle  of  the  life  mani- 
fested in  nature  and  man,  a  pantheistic  theory  as  to 
God,  a  theory  of  transmigration  as  to  man,  will  emerge. 
But  if  its  tendency  had  been  to  seek  a  Supreme  Will 
and  Authority,  then  the  result  will  be  a  personal  God, 
and  the  personal  continuance  of  man.  The  first  will 
thus  have  a  metaphysical,  but  the  second  a  moral  basis. 
Brahmanism  may  stand  as  an  example  of  the  one,  Zoro- 
astrism  of  the  other. 

Religion  and  philosophic  thought  on  such  questions 
as  God  and  Immortality  thus  so  run  into  each  other  in 
their  respective  beginnings  as  to  be  then  indistinguish- 
able. Philosophy  springs  out  of  religion — is  the  attempt 
of  a  devout  reflective  man  to  understand  and  explain 
himself  and  the  universe.  Hence  the  roots  both  of 
ancient  and  modern  thought  on  our  subject  must  be 
sought  in  the  ancient  religions. 

Immortality  is  not  a  doctrine  of  the  schools,  but  a 
faith  of  humanity,  not  based  on  the  metaphysic  or 
proved  by  the  logic  of  a  given  system,  but  the  utterance 
of  an  instinct  common  to  the  race,  which  has  made 
itself  heard  wherever  man  has  advanced  from  a  religion 
of  nature  to  a  religion  of  faith.  And  there  is  no  article 
of  belief  he  so  reluctantly  surrenders  even  to  the  de- 
mands of  system.  One  of  the  most  daring  critical  and 
speculative  spirits  of  our  century  rallied,  with  caustic 
irony,  his  transcendental  countrymen  on  their  tender- 
ness for  the  ego — a  tenderness  which  spared  self,  while 


I08  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

Deity  was  sacrificed.*  And  he  found  the  denial  of  per* 
sonal  immortality  the  last  step  of  the  inexorable  logic 
which  completed  the  cycle  of  Transcendental  Philoso- 
phy. 

III. 

The  history  of  a  great  human  belief  ought  to  have 
some  significance  for  modern  thought.  It  exhibits  mind 
in  action,  believing  in  obedience  to  its  own  necessary 
laws.  What  man  has  done  by  nature  nature  can  justify. 
Certain  beliefs  are  regarded  as  the  results  of  art  or  acci- 
dent or  custom,  and  the  source  determines  the  quality 
and  value  of  the  stream.  But  the  belief  that  can  be 
proved  to  be  native  to  mind  has  its  right  to  exist  vindi- 
cated, is  a  child  of  nature,  not  of  art.  What  the  intel- 
lect can  best  conceive  it  can  best  believe  ;  the  universal 
faith  but  articulates  the  universal  thought. 

To  believe  in  immortality  is  not  only  more  congenial 
to  the  heart,  but  more  conformable  to  the  reason  than 
to  believe  in  annihilation.  Destruction  is  indemonstra- 
ble. It  Can  never  be  proved  that  what  makes  the  man 
a  reasonable  and  moral  being  ceases  to  be  when  the 
pulse  ceases  to  beat  and  the  tongue  to  speak.  The  most 
that  can  be  proved  is,  that  certain  signs  interpretative 
of  the  man,  expressive  of  his  thoughts,  emotions,  and 
volitions,  have  ceased  to  be  perceived.  There  is  still- 
ness, silence,  the  organ  thrills  no  more  with  its  living 
music,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  silence  is 
due  to  the  loss  of  the  noble  mind  that  touched  its  keys 
into  harmony  rather  than  to  the  failure  of  its  pipes  and 

♦  D.  F.  Strauss,  "Die  Christliche  Glaubenslehre,"  ii.  pp. 
697  ff. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


£09 


breath.  The  senses  are  not  the  man.  His  eminence  is 
not  due  to  his  organism,  but  to  his  moral  and  spiritual 
faculties.  The  savage  is  as  a  sensuous  being  often  much 
more  highly  developed  than  the  sage.  The  dog  and  the 
deer  are  keener  in  smell  than  man.  The  eagle  excels 
him  in  strength  and  distance  of  vision  ;  the  game  of  the 
forest  or  jungle  are  quicker  in  hearing.  The  man  is 
man  by  virtue  of  the  mind  that  uses  the  senses,  not  by 
virtue  of  the  senses  used.  Their  loss  is  not  the  loss  of 
him.  Did  he  cease  to  be  when  they  cease  to  act,  then 
the  accident  were  the  essence,  the  sign  the  thing  signi- 
fied. The  thinker  who  resolves  thought  into  transfigured 
sensations  may  get  rid  of  immortality,  but  he  does  so 
by  getting  rid  of  mind.  And  he  does  it  by  a  suicidal 
process.  He  denies  too  much  to  be  able  to  affirm  any- 
thing, and  where  nothing  can  be  affirmed  nothing  can 
be  denied. 

But  if  it  is  impossible,  on  the  one  hand,  to  prove  that 
the  dead  have  ceased  to  be  real  and  living  persons,  it  is 
as  impossible,  on  the  other,  to  conceive  a  state  of  abso- 
lute non-existence.  Nonentity  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  Its  two  parts  annihilate  each  other.  Nothing 
cannot  be  thought — must  be  by  the  very  attempt  to  con- 
ceive it  translated  into  something.  If,  then,  death  is 
imagined  or  defined,  it  is  realized,  becomes  a  state  of 
real  or  positive  being.  What  ceases  to  be,  ceases  to  be 
an  object  of  thought ;  to  think  of  the  dead  is  to  predicate 
existence  in  fact  even  where  it  is  in  form  denied.  And 
Being  continued  for  ever  is  no  harder  to  conceive  than 
Being  continued  for  a  year  or  a  century.  Eternal  is, 
indeed,  more  conceivable  than  temporal  existence,  the 
latter  being  only  explicable  through  the  former.  Where 
spirit  is  concerned  duration  means  growth,  not  decay. 


1 1  o  TITE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

Mind  does  not  count  its  being  by  seasons  or  suns,  but 
by  thought  and  action.  Organized  being  has  had  a 
past,  has  a  present,  will  have  a  future ;  but  spiritual 
being  simply  exists,  enjoys  an  everlasting  Now.  Thought 
is  the  life  of  the  intellect.  To  think  is  to  be.  And 
thought  create's  time  and  space,  is  not  created  by  them. 
To  conceive  personal  being  rightly  is  to  conceive  it  as 
immortal. 

Mind,  then,  has  ever  found  it  more  easy  to  believe  in 
its  continued  than  in  its  interrupted  and  destroyed  being. 
And  it  has  done  so  by  a  necessity  of  its  own  nature, 
which  we  may  name  either  an  inability  or  an  ability — • 
the  first,  in  so  far  as  mind  cannot  conceive  nonentity, 
the  negation  of  reality,  the  second  is  so  far  as  the  con- 
ceived is  the  realized.  Now,  to  trace  the  development 
of  the  Belief  in  India  and  Greece  will  be  to  show  how 
mind,  under  the  most  dissimilar  conditions  and  with  the 
most  opposed  views  of  nature  and  man,  has  acted  in  re- 
lation to  it ;  how  the  mental  laws  and  necessities  that 
create  the  Belief  victoriously  assert  themselves  under 
the  most  unfavorable  circumstances,  and  in  results 
whose  differences  are  more  significant  than  agreement 
had  been. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  i  n 


PART    II. 

THE   BELIEF  IN  INDIA. 

nPHE  limits  of  the  discussion  exclude  any  attempt, 
even  were  such  possible,  to  discover  by  the  analy- 
sis of  words  or  legends,  whether  there  are  any  traces  of 
the  belief  before  the  Indo-European  family  divided  into 
its  several  oriental  and  occidental  branches.  Our 
present  inquiry  has  to  do  only  with  the  Hindus  and 
Greeks,  and  so  must  start,  as  regards  both,  with  their 
earliest  extant  literature. 

I.   THE   HYMNS   OF  THE   RIG  VEDA. 

In  the  earlier  books  of  this  Veda  the  indications  of 
the  belief  are  few,  and,  in  some  respects,  indefinite.* 
This,  indeed,  was  to  be  expected.  The  religion  there 
revealed  exists  still  in  great  part  under  the  forms  of  the 
old  nature-worship,  though  it  moves  in  a  circle  of  spirit- 
ual ideas,  not,  indeed,  distinctly  conceived,  but  floating 
in  the  individual  and  general  consciousness  like  shadows 
unrealized.  The  gods  are  conceived  more  or  less  under 
physical  forms,  and  so  thought  is  occupied  with  the 
visible  manifestations  of  the  gods   and   their  present 

*  Muir's  "  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,"  v.  284  ff . ;  Wilson's 
"  Hymns  of  the  Rig-Veda,"  i.  xxv. ;  Max  Miiller's  "  Ancient  Sans. 
Lit.,"  19,  note  2. 


T 1 2  THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA. 

relations  to  man  rather  than  with  modes  of  being  and 
relations  invisible  and  future. 

Thus  intimations  of  a  belief  in  a  life  after  death  could 
not  be  numerous,  but  though  the  intimations  are  few,  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  belief  was  uncertain.  Agni,* 
Soma,t  the  Maruts,1:  Mitra  and  Varuna,§  are  implored 
to  grant  immortality.  By  liberality!  and  sacrifice,1[  a 
man  "  attains  immortality,"  "  goes  to  the  gods,"  meets 
in  the  highest  heaven  the  recompense  of  the  sacrifices 
he  has  offered.  The  Vedic  notion  of  immortality  was 
not,  indeed,  like  ours,  a  positive  abstract  conception, 
but  an  indefinite  concrete  representation.  Still  it  was 
as  comprehensive  and  affirmative  as  was  possible  to 
those  early  Hindus, — the  very  immortality  attributed  to 
their  gods.**  Hence  to  them  it  seemed  a  species  of  dei- 
fication. The  man  who  had  been  made  immortal  had 
become  a  minor  deity.  Thus,  the  Ribhus  had  "  become 
gods,"  gone  to  the  assemblage  of  the  gods.tt  Hence, 
too,  the  belief  is  expressed  less  in  the  hopes  of  the  liv- 
ing than  in  their  thoughts  touching  the  dead.     "Our 


»  R.-V.,  V.  4,  10 ;  i.  31,  7. 

t  R.-V.,  ix.  113,  7  ff. ;  Muir's  "Sans.  Texts,"  v.  306;  R.-V.,  L 
191,  18. 

X  R-V.,v.55,4.  §  R.-V.,  V.  63,  2. 

II  R.-V.,  i.  125,  5  ;  X.  107, 2.  1  X.  14,  8. 

**  In  certain  cases,  as  possibly  R.-V.,  v.  4,  10,  the  immortality 
meant  was  to  be  realized  on  earth  in  offspring  (Muir,  *'  Sans. 
Texts,"  V.  285,  note  415).  But  a  comparison  of  the  above  texts 
with  iv.  54,  2  ;  vi.  7,  4 ;  ix.  106,  8  ;  x.  53,  10,  &c.,  will  bear  out  the 
statement  of  the  text.  In  truth,  Vedic  thought  had  not  yet  learned 
to  affirm  an  absolute  immortality. 

\X  R.-V.,  i.  161,  1-5 ;  iv.  35,  3,  and  8.  Muir,  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v. 
226  and  284. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  j  13 

sage  ancestors  have  obtained  riches  among  the  gods,"* 
as  "  companions  of  the  gods  "f  they  are  implored  to  be 
"  propitious, ":|:  to  ''protect,"§  not  to  injure.||  The  faith 
in  the  continued  hfe  of  the  fathers  is  thus  so  strong  as 
to  rise  almost  to  apotheosis.  Death  had  not  annihilated 
the  fathers,  need  not  annihilate  the  sons,  and  so  they 
pray  to  be  "added  to  the  people  of  eternity,  the 
blessed."ir 

The  belief  in  a  life  after  death  seems  thus  to  have 
grown  up  round  the  thought  of  the  fathers,  or  simply 
the  dead.  Primitive  man,  conscious  of  "  life  in  every 
limb,"  could  know  nothing  of  death — could  only  con- 
ceive the  dead  as  still  alive.  And  as  the  only  notion  of 
life  outside  and  above  nature  was  associated  with  the 
gods,  a  life  akin  to  the  Divine  was  attributed  to  the 
departed  ancestors.  Thus  the  belief  stands  enshrined 
in  the  heart  of  the  Vedic  religion,  interwoven,  on  the 
one  hand,  with  the  idea  of  God,  on  the  other,  with 
the  memory  of  the  fathers.  And  that  it  had  grown 
with  the  history  of  the  people  a  primitive  legend  seems 
to  show.  In  the  later  books  of  the  Rig- Veda  the  future 
life  stands  impersonated,  as  it  were,  in  Yama.  Now 
Yama  is  the  Iranian  Yirna.  His  father  is  in  the  Vedas 
Vivasvat,  in  the  Zend  Avesta  Vivanghat.  The  names 
in  each  case  are  identical,  and  indicate  that  some  legend 
connected  with  them  must  have  existed  prior  to  the  sep- 
aration of  the  Aryans.** 

*  R.-V.,  i.  91,  I ;  i.  179,  6.  t  R.-V.,  vii.  76,  4. 

X  R.-V.,  vi.  75,  10;  vii.  35,  12.  §  R.-V.,  vi.  52,  4. 

II  iii.  55,  2.  1  vii.  57,  6.     Muir,  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  28,  5. 

**  It  is  not  possible  to  enter  here  in  any  satisfactory  way  into  any 
of  the  many  questions,  critical,  philosophical,  mythological,  historical 
connected  with  this  legend.  As  to  its  existence  in  the  Aryan 
period,  and  its  bearing  on  the  relationship  of  the  Iranian  and  Indian 

8 


114 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


But  the  legend  survives  in  the  two  branches  under 
two  different  forms.  The  Iranian  Yima  is  the  founder 
and  king  of  a  golden  age,  during  whose  reign  neither 
sickness,  nor  age,  nor  death,  neither  cold  nor  heat,  nei- 
ther hatred  nor  strife,  existed.  The  Indian  Yama  is 
the  king  of  the  dead,  the  assembler  of  men  who  departed 
to  the  mighty  streams,  and  spied  out  the  road  for  many.  * 
But  the  legends,  though  different,  are  not  contradictory. 
The  tradition  of  the  first  man  who  lived  might  well  in- 
clude, or  glide  into,  the  tradition  of  the  first  man  who 
died.  In  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  the  one  would 
be  the  other ;  and  so  the  legend,  in  its  original  form, 
might  comprehend  both  the  Iranian  and  Indian  ver- 
sions.    And  the  division  is  explicable  enough.      The 

branches,  see  Dr.  Muir,  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  ii.  296,  469  f . ;  Spiegel, 
"  Er^nische  Alterthumsk.,"  439  f . ;  Lassen,  "  Ind.  Alterthumsk."  i. 
619  ff.  (2nd  ed.).  For  an  exhaustive  critical  and  philosophical 
discussion  of  the  legend  under  its  Iranian  and  Indian  forms,  see 
Prof.  Roth's  article,  "  Die  Sage  von  Dschemschid,"  "  Zeitsch.  d. 
Deuts.  Morganl.  Gesel.,"  iv.  417,  433.  Also,  Duncker's  "  Gesch* 
ichte  der  Arier,"  453  ff.  For  a  discussion  as  well  as  an  annotated 
translation  of  the  passages  in  the  Rig- Veda  referring  to  Yama,  see 
Dr.  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  v.  287  ff ;  300  ff.  Professor  Max  Miiller, 
"  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language,"  ii.  481  ff.,  resolves  the 
Yama  legend  as  given  in  the  Rig- Veda  into  one  of  the  myths  of  the 
Dawn,  Yama,  the  day,  Yami,  his  sister,  the  night.  Without 
attempting  to  discuss  the  question  with  the  above  distinguished 
scholar,  I  may  simply  say  that  his  mythological  theory  seems  to  me 
to  be  too  narrow  and  exclusive.  It  is  so  occupied  with  nature  as 
to  leave  little  or  no  room  for  the  exercise  of  thought  and  imagina- 
tion upon  the  condition  and  destiny  of  man.  The  tragic  elements 
of  human  life,  birth  and  death,  must  have  touched  primitive  mind 
quite  as  profoundly  as  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun ;  and  the 
Yama  legend  appears  to  be  pre-eminently  one  of  those  in  which 
the  thoughts  of  men  concerning  man  found  expression. 
♦  R.-V.  X.  14,  I ;  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  291  ff. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  j  i  c 

Iranic,  as  a  reformed  faith,  seeking  for  itself  a  moral 
basis,  clung  to  the  picture  of  a  golden  past,  where  the 
antagonisms  it  hated  were  unknown.  The  Indian,  less 
moral,  more  imaginative,  caught  in  the  toils  of  a  nature- 
worship,  sighed  for  relief,  and  sought  it  in  the  kingdom 
of  light  into  which  the  son  of  Vivasvat  had  been  the 
first  to  return.  And  so,  while  the  legend  in  the  one 
case  passed  through  a  series  of  developments  in  which 
Yima  and  his  golden  age  gradually  deteriorated,  it  be- 
came in  the  other  the  centre  round  which  the  Hindu 
doctrine  of  the  future  life  developed.  The  processes 
were  similar,  but  the  result  different,  because  the  mythi- 
cal faculty  had  its  objects  placed  in  different  spheres. 

Yama,  then,  is  the  highest  expression  of  the  later  Ve- 
dic  faith  in  a  future  life.  He  dwells  in  celestial  light, 
in  the  innermost  sanctuary  of  heaven.  *  He  and  the 
fathers  are  "  in  the  highest  heaven."  He  grants  to 
the  departed  "an  abode  distinguished  by  days,  and 
waters,  and  lights."  f  He  grants  a  "  long  life  among 
the  gods."  X  He  is  associated  with  the  god  Varuna, 
worshipped  as  a  god,  and  "  feasts  according  to  his  de- 
sire on  the  oblations."  §  "  He  shares  his  gratification 
with  the  eager  Vasishthas,  our  ancient  ancestors,  who 
presented  the  Soma  libation."  ||  Yama  and  the  fathers 
thus  enjoy  immortal  blessedness  in  heaven.  Such  was 
the  intense  faith  of  the  later  Vedic  poets.  But  as  the 
faith  was  evolved  so  was  the  question — How  can  we  be 
raised  to  the  society  of  Yama  and  the  fathers  ?  Their 
ancestors,  the  men  of  the  heroic  age  which  lies  always 
in  the  past,  deserved  to  be  made  immortal,  but  how  was 

*  R.-V.,  ix.  113,  7  and  8 ;  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  302. 

t  R.-V.,  X.  14, 8  and  9.  %  R.-V.,  x.  14,  14. 

§  R..V.,  X.  14,  7 ;  X.  15, 8.  11  R.-V.,  x.  1 5,  8. 


1 1 6  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

immortality  possible  to  their  less  worthy  sons  ?  And 
here  a  decisive  and  determinating  peculiarity  of  the 
early  Hindu  faith  emerged.  Future  happiness  had  a 
sacerdotal,  as  distinguished  from  a  religious,  or  moral, 
or  national  basis — rested,  not  so  much  on  virtue  or  hero- 
ism, as  on  the  worship  of  sacerdotal  deities,  and  the 
practice  of  sacerdotal  rites.  The  old  natural  deities, 
though  now  and  then  implored  to  grant  immortality,are, 
as  a  rule,  limited  to  action  in  the  sphere  of  the  present 
and  the  seen ;  but  the  sacerdotal  deities,  /.  ^.,  gods 
formed  from  the  deification  of  the  instruments  of  wor- 
ship, were  the  great  distributors  of  future  happiness. 
Thus,  Agni  is  "  made  by  the  gods  the  centre  of  immor- 
tality ;  "  *  is  its  guardian  ;  exalts  mortals  to  it,  f  warms 
with  his  heat  the  unborn  part,  and  conveys  it  to  the 
world  of  the  righteous.  X  Soma  '■'  confers  immortality 
on  gods  and  men."  §  He  is  implored  to  place  his  wor- 
shipper "  in  that  everlasting  and  imperishable  world 
where  there  is  eternal  light  and  glory."  ||  Those  who 
have  drunk  the  Soma  have  "  become  immortal,"  "  have 
entered  into  light."  If  Then,  sacerdotal  rites,  like  sac- 
rifice, or  virtues  like  liberality  to  the  priests,  purchase 
immortality.  *  *  So  comprehensive  and  absolute  is  the 
supremacy  of  the  sacerdotal  element  in  the  later  Vedic 
religion,  that  the  other  gods  are  now  and  then  repre- 


*  R.-V.,  iii.  17,  4.  t  R.-V.,  i.  31,  7 ;  vii.  7,  7. 

X  R.-V.,  X.  16,  4.  See  also  passages  from  Atharva-Veda,  in  Dr. 
Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  299  ff. 

§  R.-V.,  i.  91,  I,  6,  18;  ix.  io8,  3;  ix.  109,  3.  See  also  the  chap- 
ter  on  Indra's  love  of  the  Soma-juice,  in  Dr.  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts," 
v.SSff.  II  R.-V.,  ix.  113,  7  f- 

t  R.-V.,  viii.  48,  3.  **  R.-V.,  x.  154,  3-5;  107,  2. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  ny 

sented  as  dependent  for  immortality  and   enjoyment 
upon  the  sacerdotal  deities  or  rites.  * 

The  influence  of  this  sacerdotalism  on  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Hindu  faith  in  general,  and  belief  in  the 
future  life  of  the  soul  in  particular,  must  here  be  dis- 
tinctly recognized.  The  question  is  not  as  to  its  origin, 
but  as  to  its  influence.  Its  source  is  psychological,  and 
it  forms  an  essential  element  in  all  religions — is  repre- 
sented in  our  Christian  faith  by  the  sacrifice  and  priest- 
hood of  Christ ;  but,  for  reasons  which  cannot  be  stated 
here,  it  grew  very  early  to  portentous  proportions,  and 
exercised  a  baneful  influence  among  the  Hindus.  The 
Vedic  religion  may  be  described  as  a  naturalism,  with 
a  nascent  sacerdotalism  superinduced.  In  the  earlier 
Vedic  era  the  natural  was  the  predominant  element,  but 
in  the  later  the  sacerdotal.  When  a  religion  is  passing 
through  such  a  phase  of  development,  there  runs  be- 
neath or  within  it  a  stream  of  what  may  be  termed  un- 
conscious metaphysics — general  tendencies  understood 
at  the  time  in  whole  by  few,  perhaps  by  none  ;  under- 
stood in  part  by  many,  but  felt  by  all.  The  new  element 
has  to  assert  and  justify  itself  against  the  old  by  creat- 
ing for  the  religion  it  seeks  to  transform  a  new  basis, 
radically  different  from  the  old  naturalism  ;  and  so  the 
result  is  a  twofold  development — the  growth  of  religious 
rites  on  the  one  hand,  of  abstract  conceptions  on  the 
other.  But  while  the  former  are  manifested  in  the 
general  constitution  and  practice  of  the  religion,  the 
latter  can  appear  only  in  particular  and  partial  utter- 
ances.    Here  and  there  an  individual  gathers  into  him- 

*  Several  illustrative  passages  will  be  found  in  Dr.  Muir's 
«  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  14  £f. 


1 1 8  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

self  the  dim  and  diffused  consciousness  of  the  people, 
expresses  it  in  hymn  or  aphorism,  and  the  expression,  a 
mirror  to  the  collective  mind,  seems  the  result  of  Divine 
inspiration.  Hence,  while  the  speculative  and  mysti- 
cal hymns  in  the  tenth  book  of  the  Rig-Veda,  form,  in 
almost  every  respect,  contrasts  to  the  spontaneous  and 
objective  compositions  of  the  earlier  books,  they  are  yet 
only  concentrated  utterances  of  thoughts  which  had 
been  throughout  the  whole  Vedic  era  slowly  accumulat- 
ing, and  assuming  consistency  and  shape.  They  are 
like  early  spring  flowers,  at  once  manifestations  of  for- 
ces at  work  in  the  earth,  and  prophecies  of  what  is  to 
come. 

This  double  growth  of  sacerdotalism  and  abstract 
thought  stands  very  clearly  revealed  in  the  tenth  book 
of  the  Rig-Veda.  The  priesthood  is  professional,  a 
priest  necessary  to  worship.  The  sacrificial  rites  are 
numerous  and  minute.  The  value  attached  to  prayers, 
hymns,  sacrifices,  excessive.  The  new  sacerdotalism  is 
superseding  the  old  naturalism,  and  abstract  thought  is 
seen  struggling  to  find  a  new  basis  and  new  forms  for 
the  changing  religion.  Creation  is  conceived  as  a  sacri- 
fice, either  the  self-immolation  of  a  god,  or  the  immola- 
tion of  one  god  by  others.*  Sacrifice  is  the  cause  of 
human  prosperity  and  the  processes  of  nature.f  The 
Brahman  is  the  son  of  god,  sprung  from  divine  seed.1: 
The  Vedic  poets  are  the  organs  and  offspring  of  deity.§ 

*  R.-V.,  X.  8 1,  5 ;  X.  130,  3.  But  particularly  the  celebrated 
Purusha  Sukta,  x-  90.  See  this  hymn  translated,  explained,  and 
illustrated  at  great  length  and  on  all  sides  in  Dr.  Muir's  "  Sans, 
Texts,"  vol.  i.  8  ff.  ;  vol.  v.  367  ff. 

t  R.-V.,  X.  62,  1-3,  and  very  frequently. 

X  R.-V.,  vii.  33,  11-13;  x.  62,  4,  5. 

§  R.-V.,  X.  20,  10 ;  X.  61,  7. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  i  j^ 

The  hymns  are  divine,  god-generated,  or  given,  and 
enter  into  the  Rishis  by  sacrifice.*  The  speculative 
tendencies  thus  incline  to  assume  sacerdotal  forms. 
Now  and  then,  indeed,  an  exceptional  thinker,  either 
above  or  outside  priestly  influence,  asks  and  tries  to 
answer  the  profoundest  questions  in  simple  but  sublime 
words.f  Speculation,  partly  the  victim  of  the  old  na- 
turalism as  embalmed  in  language,  partly  the  seer  and 
exponent  of  the  eternal  truths  there  contained,  finds  in 
life  ever  emerging  from  death  the  principle  that  abides 
amid  the  decay  and  renewal  of  nature  and  man.  This, 
indeed,  is  but  guessed  at,  not  explicitly  developed  ;  but 
the  guess  extends  to  the  procession  of  gods  and  men 
from  a  common  source  of  life.  The  seeds  of  Hindu 
speculation  lie  like  the  germs  of  Brahmanism  in  the  later 
Vedic  hymns. 

The  belief  in  a  life  after  death  expressed  in  the  later 
Vedic  hymns  must  now  be  looked  at  in  the  light  of  these 
sacerdotal  and  speculative  tendencies.  Sacerdotalism 
held  command  over  the  future  ;  it  could  reward  and 
punish.  The  realms  of  light,  the  world  of  the  righteous, 
the  society  of  the  fathers,  a  festive  life  with  Yama,  a  life 
in  the  presence  of  the  gods,  immortality  in  a  world 
where  all  the  objects  of  gratification  are  attained,  were 
in  its  gift.  And  it  also  knew  an  "  abyss,"  |  a  "  bottom- 
less "  and  "  nethermost "  "  darkness  "§  for  the  wicked. 

*  X.  71,  3  ;  X.  125,  3    X.  88,  8  ;  X.  61,  7. 

t  See  the  extraordinary  hymn,  R.-V.,  x.  129,  translated    under 
the  title,  "  The  Thinker's  Question,"  in  Professor  Max  Miiller's 
"  Anc.  Sans.  Lit."  p.  564.     Also  by  Dr.  Muir,  iv.  4,  and  v.  356  ff  . 
and  by  Mr.  Colebrooke,  **  Essays,"  p.  17  (Williams  and  Norgate's 
edition). 

X  R.-V.,  vii.  104,3,  17;  ix.  73.8. 

§  R.-V.,  X.  152,  4;  X.  103,  12. 


1 2  o  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

Speculation  has  to  seek  a  reason  or  ground  for  this  sa- 
cerdotal power,  and  sees  it,  in  a  far-off  sort  of  way,  in 
the  unity  of  human  nature  with  the  divine,  broken  by 
the  earthly  life,  but  restored  by  sacrifice.  Thought  had 
divined  that  unity  in  the  source  of  life  implied  the 
creation  and  derivative  immortality  of  the  gods.  It  had 
deified  the  fathers,  deified  the  rishis,  and  so  had  learned 
to  conceive  the  permanent  element  in  man  as  akin  to 
the  divine.  On  this  ground  pre-  and  post-existence 
become  alike  natural,  complementary  conceptions.  And 
so  Agni  is  implored  in  a  funeral  hymn  to  kindle  with 
his  heat  the  "  unborn  part "  of  the  dead  ;  to  "  give  up 
again  to  the  fathers  him  who  comes  offered  with  obla- 
tions." *  To  the  soul  of  the  departed  it  is  said,  "  Throw- 
ing off  all  imperfection  again  go  to  thy  home."t  Man 
has  had  a  past,  will  have  a  future,  has  come  from  God 
and  may  to  God  return.  And  the  thought  has  a  side 
which  indicates  its  ultimate  anthropological  form,  as 
distinguished  from  its  theological  basis.  The  dead  is 
told  to  "  become  united  to  a  body  and  clothed  in  a 
shining  form."$  The  varied  constituents  of  the  body 
are  told  to  go  to  the  elements  to  which  they  are  akin.§ 
The  like  seeks  the  like.  Without  body  or  form  indi- 
vidual life  is  inconceivable.  And  over  all  sacrifice  pre- 
sides, bringing  the  gods  to  receive  the  "  unborn  part," 
carrying  it  to  the  homes  of  Yama  and  the  fathers. 

In  these  Vedic  Hymns,  then,  the  belief  in  a  life  after 
death  changes  with  the  change  in  the  religion.  In  the 
older  Naturalism,  it  was  a  simple  belief  in  the  continued 
life  of  the  fathers  ;  in  the  later  embryo-sacerdotalism,  it 
is  becoming  related,  on  its  material  side,  to  the  idea  of 

*  R.-V.,  X.  i6,  4,  5.  t  R.-V.,  X.  14, 8. 

X  Id.  §  R.-V.,  X.  16,  3. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  12X 

God,  on  its  formal,  to  the  observance  of  religious  rites. 
The  older  faith  had  as  its  objects  persons,  but  the  later 
is  slowly  refining  its  objects  into  abstractions.  A 
Pantheism  as  to  God,  a  theory  of  transmigration  as  to 
man,*  had  not  yet  been  evolved,  but  the  seeds  of  both 
had  been  sown,  and  had  even,  under  the  forcing  influ- 
ences of  the  nascent  sacerdotalism,  begun  to  germinate. 
The  seeds  were  still  under  the  foot,  still  in  the  earth, 
while  the  Vedic  Rishis  lived,  but  in  the  centuries  which 
followed,  those  seeds  grew  into  forests,  in  which  their 
sons  were  inextricably  entangled  and  hopelessly  be- 
wildered. 

2.    THE  BRAHMANAS.f 

These  mark  the  next  point  at  which  the  inquiry  into 
the  Hindu  belief  in  the  soul's  life  after  death  can  be 

*  The  only  verse  from  the  Rig- Veda  ever  quoted  in  proof  of 
transmigration  being  believed  when  the  hymns  were  composed  is, 
i.  164,  32.  Professor  Wilson  renders: — "He  who  has  made  (this 
state  of  things)  does  not  comprehend  it ;  he  who  has  beheld  it,  has 
it  verily  hidden  (from  him) ;  he,  whilst  yet  enveloped  in  his  moth- 
er's womb,  is  subject  to  many  births,  and  has  entered  upon  evil." 
("Hymns  of  the  R.-V.,"  vol.  ii.  137,  13S.)  But,  as  the  late  Pro 
fessor  Goldstiicker  observed  (Art.  Transmigration,  "Chambers's 
Cyclop."),  "  The  word  of  the  text,  bahuprajah,  rendered  by  Wilson, 
according  to  the  commentators,  *  is  subject  to  many  births,'  may 
according  to  the  same  commentators,  also  mean,  '  has  many  off- 
springs,' or  '  has  many  children ; '  and  as  the  latter  is  the  more 
literal  and  usual  sense  of  the  word,  whereas  the  former  is  artificial, 
no  conclusion  whatever  regarding  the  doctrine  of  transmigration 
can  safely  be  founded  on  it."  Besides,  such  a  doctrine  is  entirely 
alien  to  Vedic  modes  of  thought. 

t  As  to  the  date  of  the  Brahmanas,  the  place  they  occupy  in  San- 
skrit literature,  their  design,  relation  to  the  Vedas,  &c.,  see  Max 
Miiller's  "  Anc.  Sans.  Lit,"  pp.  342  ff. ;  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  iL 
pp.  178  ff. 


122  THE  BELIEF  IN  TMMOR  TALITY. 

resumed,  and  its  growth  measured.  Sacerdotalism  is 
now  "full-blown."*  The  Aryans  have  penetrated  fur- 
ther into  India.  The  consequent  changes  and  conquests 
have  contributed  to  the  growth  of  Brahmanical  preten- 
sions. The  priest  has  extended  and  deepened  his  com- 
mand over  time  and  eternity.  The  number  of  the 
sacrifices  has  been  increased,  their  efficacy  heightened, 
their  minutest  details  made  essential.  The  supersession 
of  the  old  Vedic  naturalism  is  complete.  The  names 
of  the  old  gods  remain,  but  their  natures  are  changed. 

The  speculative  principles,  which  form  the  basis  of 
this  full-blown  sacerdotalism,  have  also  developed. 
Thought  has  changed  the  formal  into  the  material 
element.  It  had  made  sacrifice  first  please,  then  com- 
mand, then  become  greater  than  the  gods,  and  now, 
finally,  the  source  of  gods,  man,  and  the  universe. 

Prayer  or  devotion  has  risen  by  a  similar  process  to 
be  Brahma  (Neuter),  the  supreme,  the  self-existent. 

The  gods  became  immortal  by  sacrifice.f  Brahma 
produced  out  of  himself  the  universe,^  was,  as  to  his 
essence,  in  the  Brahman,  pervaded  and  so  made  the 
once  mortal  gods  immortal.§  Sacerdotal  thought,  pur- 
suing its  career  of  abstraction,  has  thus  deified  its  own 
conceptions.  Brahmanical  sacrifice  is  the  source  and 
basis  and  very  substance  of  the  universe.  Brahmanical 
thought  is  eternal,  its  vehicle  divine.  The  old  worship 
still  stands,  only  in  more  developed  forms,  but  sacer- 
dotal thought,  at  once  idealizing  and  abstractive,  has 

*  Professor  Roth,  quoted  in  Dr.  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  ii.  183. 
t  S'atapatha  Brahmana,  x.  4,  3,  1-8  ;  xi.  i,  2,  12. 
X  lb.,  xi.  2,  3,  I  ;  xiii.  7,  i,  i. 

§  lb.,  xi,  2,  3,  I  ff.  See  a  variety  of  passages  in  Muir's  "  Sans. 
Texts,"  iv.  24  ff. ;  v,  387  ff. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  123 

explained  into,  or  inserted  beneath,  it,  a  circle  of  ideas 
evolved  from  the  old,  but  destructive  of  it. 

In  harmony  with  these  general  tendencies,  the  belief 
in  a  life  after  death  has  alike  on  its  material  and  forma' 
sides  developed.  There  is  the  clear  conception 
another  life  conditioned,  as  to  its  nature  and  issues,  by 
the  present.  The  rewards  received  in  it  are  determined 
by  the  sacrifices  oifered  here.  The  greater  the  latter 
in  number  and  value,  the  higher  the  former.  These  re- 
wards are,  indeed,  on  one  side  continued  individual  life, 
proportioned  in  its  felicity  and  duration  to  the  quantity 
and  quality  of  the  sacrifices  performed ;  but  they  point, 
on  another  side,  to  a  union  with  Brahma,  or  a  transmu- 
tation into  other  gods,  which  is  hardly  compatible  with 
continued  individuality.  Thus  it  is  said  that  he  who 
sacrifices  in  a  certain  way  "  conquers  for  himself  an 
union  with  these  two  gods  (Aditya  and  Agni),  and  an 
abode  in  the  same  sphere."  *  Again,  those  who  offer 
particular  sacrifices  "become  Agni,  Varuna,  or  Indra, 
attain  to  union  and  the  same  spheres  with  these  gods 
respectively. "t  Again,  "  he  who  sacrifices  with  a  burnt 
offering  arrives  by  Agni  as  the  door  to  Brahma,  and, 
having  so  arrived,  he  attains  to  a  union  with  Brahma,  and 
abides  in  the  same  sphere  with  him."$  And  he  who 
reached  this  union  was  not,  while  he  who  did  not  reach 
it  was,  subject  to  repeated  births  and  changes.  Thus,  a 
passage  of  the  S'atapatha  Brahmana  represents  the  gods 
as  made  immortal  by  certain  sacrifices,  and  then  pro- 
ceeds : — "  Death  said  to  the  gods,  '  In  the  very  same  way, 
all  men  (also)  shall  become  immortal,  then  what  portion 
will  remain  for   me  ? '     The  gods  replied,   *  Hencefor- 

*  S'atap.  Brah.,  xi.  6,  2,  2,  3.       t  lb.,  ii.  6,  4,  8.        %  lb.  xi.  4,  4,  i. 


124 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


ward  no  other  being  shall  become  immortal  with  his 
body,  when  thou  shalt  have  seized  that  part.  Now, 
every  one  who  is  to  become  immortal  through  knowl- 
edge, or  by  work,  shall  become  immortal  after  parting 
with  his  body.'  This,  which  they  said  '  by  knowledge 
or  by  work,'  means  that  knowledge  which  is  Agni,  that 
work  which  is  Agni.  Those  who  so  know  this,  or  who 
perform  this  rite,  are  bom  again  after  deaths  and,  by  be- 
ing so  born,  they  attain  immortality.  Whilst  those  who 
do  not  so  know,  or  who  do  not  perform  this  rite,  are^ 
indeed^  born  again  after  death,  but  become  again  a?td  again 
his  foody  1" 

The  first  italicized  clause  plainly  promises  final  eman- 
cipation from  death  ;  the  second  as  plainly  implies  suc- 
cessive appearances  in  a  bodily  form,  subject  to  mortal- 
ity. And  the  same  thought  is,  in  another  passage,  thus 
expressed: — "He  who  does  so  (studies  the  Veda)  is 
freed  from  dying  a  second  time,  and  attains  to  a  union 
with  Brahma."  f  The  Brahmanas,  then,  did  not  regard 
the  state  after  death  as  necessarily  final.  It  was  so  to 
the  good  who  attained  the  abode  of  the  gods,  or  union 
with  Brahma,  but  was  not  so  to  the  bad.  Hence  the 
balances  in  which  a  man's  deeds  are  weighed  may  be 
either  in  this  world  or  the  next.  If  a  man  places  him- 
self in  the  balances  here  he  escapes  them  hereafter,  but 
if  not,  then  he  must  be  weighed  there,  and  follow  the 
result  ;t  /.  ^.,  the  pious  in  this  life  escape  all  changes  in 
the  next,  others  shall  be  subjected  to  change,  determined 
by  the  relative  proportions  of  the  good  and  evil  deeds 
placed  in  the  balances. 

*  X.  4,  3,  9.  Translated  in  Dr.  Muir's  *'  Sans.  Texts,"  iv.  49  f. ; 
V.  316  f.  All  the  passages  quoted  in  this  section  will  be  found  in 
the  sixth  chapter  of  i8th  section  of  latter  volume. 

t  S'atap.  Brah.,  xi.  5,  6, 9.  }  lb.,  xi.  2,  7,  33. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  125 

Again,  the  theor}'  alike  of  reward  and  retribution  is, 
that  like  seeks  like,  or,  rather,  that  the  reward  is  of  the 
same  nature  as  the  merit,  the  punishment  as  the  sin. 
"  Hence  they  say  that  a  man  is  born  into  the  world 
which  he  has  made."*  "  So  many  sacrifices  as  a  man 
has  performed  when  he  departs  from  this  world,  with 
so  many  is  he  born  in  the  other  world  after  his  death."t 
Certain  sacrifices  "  free  from  the  mortal  body"  and  raise 
to  heaven,  certain  others  "  conquer"  for  the  offerer  much 
less4  Certain  sacrifices  secure  a  more,  others  a  less, 
spiritual  body.§  Some  become  the  soul  of  the  sacri- 
ficer,  and  ensure  his  birth  with  his  whole  body  in  the 
next  world,  but  others  are  of  more  limited  efficacy.|| 
On  the  other  hand,  the  punishments  of  the  wicked  are 
akin  in  nature,  and  proportioned  in  degree,  to  their  sins 
here.  Thus  a  legend,  which  Professor  Weber  extracts 
from  the  S'atapatha  Brahmana,1[  gives,  while  illustrating 

*  S'atap.  Brah.,  vi.  2,  2,  27.  t  lb.,  x.  6,  3,  i. 

}  lb.,  xi.  2,  6,  13.  §  lb.,  X.  I,  5,  4. 

II   lb.,  iv.  6,  II  ;  xi.  i,  8,  6;  xii.  8,  3,  31. 

1[  "  Eine  Legende  des  Satapatha-Brahmana,  iiber  die  Strafende 
Vergeltuiig  nach  dem  Tode,"  Indische  Streifen,  i.  pp.  20-30.  See 
an  epitome,  with  ample  and  instructive  illustrations,  in  Dr.  Muir's 
"  Sans.  Texts,"  V.  314  ff.  Professor  Weber  attempts,  in  his  re- 
marks on  the  above  legend,  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  belief  in 
transmigration.  He  says : — "  The  Brahmanas  do  not  speak  dfe- 
tinctly  concerning  the  duration  of  their  rewards  and  punishments, 
and  here  manifestly  is  the  starting  point  of  the  dogma  of  transmi- 
gration to  be  sought.  To  men  of  the  mild  disposition  and  thought- 
ful spirit  of  the  Indians,  an  eternity  of  reward  or  punishment  would 
not  appear  probable.  To  them  it  must  have  seemed  possible  to 
expiate  by  atonement  and  purification  the  punishment  due  to  the 
sins  committed  in  this  short  life.  And,  according  to  their  opinion, 
the  reward  for  virtues  exercised  in  the  same  brief  period  could  not 
endure  for  ever."     (Loc.cit.,  p.  22.)     But  the  roots  of  the  doctrine 


126  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALI  TV. 

the  difference  between  the  old  and  the  new  belief,  quite 
a  Dantesque  picture  of  their  sufferings.  Bhrigu,  the 
son  of  Varuna,  is  sent  by  his  father  to  the  four  points  of 
the  compass  to  be  instructed  by  what  he  sees  there. 
He  goes,  and  finds  in  each  quarter  men  being  either 
hacked  in  pieces  or  eaten  by  other  men,  who  keep  say- 
ing, "This  to  thee,  this  to  me."  Bhrigu  asks  why  they 
do  so,  and  is  told,  "  These  did  so  to  us  in  the  other 
world,  we  do  so  to  them  again  here."  This  is  the  leg- 
end in  its  original  and  ethical  form  ;  the  explanation 
shows  it  transmuted  into  the  later  or  sacerdotal.  The 
men  are  made  to  represent  respectively  the  wood,  milk, 
grass,  water  used  in  the  Agnihotra  sacrifice.  He  who 
sacrifices  conquers  the  powers  of  nature  these  typify. 
He  who  does  not  becomes,  in  the  next  world,  their 
victim;  is  divided  and  eaten  there  by  plants  and  animals 
as  he  divided  and  ate  them  here.  The  change  signifi- 
cantly illustrates  the  tendencies  of  Brahmanical  thought. 
There  is  a  certain  community  of  nature  between  man 
and  the  world  ;  the  one  can  suffer  at  the  hands  of  the 
other.  Sacrifice  has  power  to  unite  man  to  God,  or  to 
deliver  him  to  punitive  material  forces.  He  can  be  as- 
similated to  the  Highest  or  subordinated  to  the  lowest. 

are  to  be  sought  in  the  metaphysical,  not  in  the  moral,  ideas  of  t-e 
Indians.  The  notion  of  everlasting  reward,  though  perhaps  not  in 
a  European  or  Christian  sense,  had  been  reached  in  the  Brahmanas, 
and  was  the  result  of  sacerdotalism  crudely  conceiving  its  own 
efficacy.  Everlasting  punishment  was  not  conceived  under  a  final 
form,  but  there  was  what  might  stand  as  its  equivalent.  Sacerdotal- 
ism could  not  allow  those  who  had  despised  its  authority  to  pass 
for  ever  out  of  its  power.  Transmigration  did  for  the  Eastern 
priesthood  vyhat  purgatory  did  for  the  Western,  but  the  dominant 
sacerdotalism  in  each  case  only  developed  and  translated  into  a 
form  suitable  to  its  own  use  the  matter  of  the  general  belief. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  127 

The  Brahmanas  thus  show  our  belief  in  a  much  more 
developed  state  than  the  Vedas.  Their  future  state  is 
not  necessarily  final ;  it  may  and  it  may  not  be  so.  Its 
highest  reward,  union  with  Brahma,  gives  finality,  but 
not  its  lower.  A  man  may  become  again  and  again  the 
food  of  death.  Then,  its  punishments  are  received  at 
the  hands  of  Nature  unconquered  by  sacrifice.  And 
the  ideas  that  form  the  roots  of  these  representations 
are  monistic.  Speculation,  more  or  less  consciously, 
recognizes  the  essence  of  all  beings  as  one  ;  sacerdotal- 
ism, quite  consciously,  determines  under  what  mode 
man  shall  exist.  Its  being  is  so  bound  up  with  the  faith 
in  a  future  life  that  it  cannot  allow  that  faith  to  perish. 

3.   THE   UPANISHADS.* 

The  sacerdotal,  as  the  formal  and  sensible,  can  never 
be  to  thoughtful  minds  the  ultimate  and  highest  element 
of  religion.  Worship  in  any  form  is  a  mediator,  a  mode 
in  which  man  tries  by  articulate  or  inarticulate  expres- 
sion to  speak  to  God.  Intense  and  subtle  spirits  always 
seek  to  dispense  with  this  mediator,  to  get  face  to  face 
with  God,  discover  what  He  is,  and  what  their  ultimate 
relations  to  Him. 

Worship,  whether  sacerdotal  or  devotional,  reposes 
upon  and  expresses  certain  doctrinal  or  speculative  prin- 
ciples, and  the  more  clearly  these  are  comprehended, 
the  more  does  the  worship  seem,  so  far  as  the  instructed 
or  initiated  are  concerned,  a  circuitous  and  unnecessary 

*  For  the  literary  questions  connected  with  the  Upanishads,  see 
Prof.  Max  Muller's  "  Anc.  Sans.  Lit.,"  pp.  316  ff. ;  Colebrooke's 
*'  Essays,"  "  Essay  on  the  Sacred  Writings  of  the  Hindus,"  par- 
ticularly p.  55. 


X28  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

medium  of  intercourse  and  what  it  may  involve.  Hence, 
within  every  sacerdotal  religion,  yet  above  it,  its  contra- 
diction, yet  its  offspring,  a  mystical  or  theosophic  ten- 
dency is  sure  to  rise.  On  the  other  hand,  a  doctrinal 
religion,  i.e.,  one  which  consists  of  formulated  princi- 
ples, or  propositions  addressed  to  the  intellect,  is,  as  a 
rule,  antagonistic  to  mysticism.  Thus,  Greek  theoso- 
phic thought  is  found,  as  in  the  Orphici,  Pythagoreans, 
and  Neo-Platonists,  allied  with  elaborate  and  symboli- 
cal worships.  Thus,  too,  Roman  Catholicism  has  been 
rich.  Protestantism  comparatively  poor,  in  eminent  mys- 
tics. Tauler  and  Eckhart,  Saint  Theresa  and  Saint 
Catherine,  Fenelon  and  Madame  Guion,  are  natural 
products  of  the  former,  hardly  to  be  matched  in  the 
latter.  Thus,  too,  Lutheranism  as  compared  with  Cal- 
vinism, has  been  prolific  in  mystics,  and  can  boast 
of  Jacob  Behman  and  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  two  of  the 
most  eminent.  The  reason  seems  to  be,  that  a  doctrinal 
religion  has,  but  a  sacerdotal  has  not,  the  semblance 
of  ultimate  truth,  and  so  an  intense  intellect,  while  it 
may  be  satisfied  with  the  first,  cannot  rest  in  the  second, 
but  craves  to  pierce  the  temporal  forms  to  the  eternal 
God  behind. 

This  theosophic  phase  of  thought,  inevitable  in  India 
from  its  peculiar  religious  development,  receives  distinct 
expression  in  the  Upanishads.  It  had  existed  as  a  ten- 
dency even  in  the  Rig- Veda.  The  tenth  book  contains, 
not  only  the  products  of  abstract  thought,  but  praises 
of  (tapas)  austerity,  rigorous  abstraction.  Right  and 
truth  are  represented  as  springing  from  kindled  auster- 
ity.*    The  sages  of  a  thousand  songs  become  by  austere 

♦  R-V.,  X.  190,  I. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  1 2  9 

fervor  invincible,  went  by  it  to  heaven.*  And  in  the 
speculative  hymns  its  influence  is  indicated.  That  one 
which  breathed  breathless,  while  as  yet  death  was  not, 
nor  immortality,  was  developed  by  the  power  of  fervor 
(tapas).t  This  was  the  first  step  in  the  path  of  pure 
theosophic  speculation.  By  austerity  a  limit  was  put 
to  sacerdotalism — it  might  avail  for  the  many,  not  for 
the  elect  few.  In  austere  fervor  there  was  generated 
the  thought  which  strove  to  find  a  footing  on  the  Ulti- 
mate Reality,  to  stand  face  to  face  with  the  first  and 
final  cause.  And  so  the  rishi  became  ambitious  to  prac- 
tice austere  fervor,  the  Brahman  to  leave  sacerdotalism 
for  asceticism,  to  become  a  bl6(i',oq^  absorbed  in  the  study 
of  the  Veda  or  the  contemplation  of  Brahma.^  Hence 
arose  the  theosophic  speculation  which  stands  expressed 
in  the  Upanishads. 

These  embody  attempts  of  generic  similarity,  but 
with  specific  differences,  to  construct  the  universe  on 
the  basis  of  abstract  thought.  Ascetic  speculation 
must  always,  indeed,  have  either  an  accepted  premiss 
or  a  foregone  conclusion,  but  it  may  so  transform,  as  to 
change  their  meaning,  the  formulae  in  which  these  are 
expressed.  Thus  Brahma  remains  in  the  Upanishads 
as  the  supreme,  the  self-existent,  but  has  lost  his  sacer- 
dotal extraction  and  relations,  and  been  transmuted 
into  the  Soul  of  the  World.§    The  metaphysical  concep- 

*  R.-V.,  X.  125,  2.  In  X.  167, 1,  it  is  said  of  Indra,  "  By  perform- 
ing austerity  thou  didst  conquer  heaven."        t  R.-V.,  x.  129,  2,  3. 

X  Lassen,  "  Ind.  Alterthumsk.,"  i.  693  (2nd  ed.). 

§  The  Atman,  which  was  the  offspring  and  finite  individualiza- 
tion of  the  paramatman,  belongs  to  the  theosophic  rather  than 
sacerdotal  thought  of  India.  As  to  the  relation  between  the 
two  words,  see  Max  MUller's  "  Anc.  Sans.  Lit.,"  pp.  19  ff.  ;  Las- 
sen, "  Ind.  Alterthumsk.,"  pp.  qi6  f. 

9 


130  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

tion  of  life  or  soul  has  replaced  the  priestly  conception 
of  deified  prayer  or  devotion.  How  then  is  this  univer- 
sal soul  to  be  conceived  ?  If  as  absolute,  it  becomes  a 
congeries  of  contradictions,  defined  yet  undefined,  en- 
dowed with  form,  yet  void  of  it,  without  limit,  yet  lim- 
ited.* This  simply  meant,  as  it  always  must  mean, 
that  you  cannot  think  an  object  without  thinking  a  qual- 
ity, and  predication  is  limitation.  Determinatio  est  nega- 
tio.  If  conceived  as  relative,  then  the  only  relation 
possible  was  one  of  evolution.  Brahma,  the  universal 
soul,  could  become  the  Universe — it  could  not  exist 
over  against  Brahma.  "  As  the  spider  casts  out  and 
draws  in  (his  web),  as  on  earth  the  annual  herbs  are 
produced,  as  from  the  living  man  the  hairs  of  the  head 
and  body  spring  forth,  so  is  produced  the  universe  from 
the  indestructible  (Brahma)."  t 

How,  again,  shall  the  relation  of  the  many  to  the 
one,  the  individual  soul  to  the  universal,  be  conceived  ? 
As  there  was  in  reality  only  one  Being,  Bramah,J  indi- 
vidual existence  was  but  seeming,  the  result  of  ignor- 
ance. Those  who  knew  Brahma  became  Brahma,§ 
those  who  did  not  know  him  were,  in  the  degree  of  their 
ignorance,  miserable,  of  their  (comparative)  knowledge, 
exalted  and  blest  ||     For  this  old  intra-sacerdotal  specu- 

*  Taittariya  Upanishad,  ii.  6 ;  Roer's  translation,  "  Bibliotheca 
Indica,"  xv.  p.  18;  Katha  Up.,  iii.  15  ;  lb.,  p.  108.  And  similarly 
often. 

t  Mundaka  Up.,  i.  1,7;  Roer,  ut  supra,  151;  Katha  Up.,  vi. 
I ;  Roer,  116. 

X  Ch'handogya  Up.,  v.,  a  dialogue  from  which  is  quoted  by 
Colebrooke,  "Essays,"  pp.  50-53  (Williams  and  Norgate's  ed.) 
Vajasaneya  Up.,      5-7  ;  Roer,  p.  72. 

§  Mundaka  Up.,  iii.  2,  4,  6,  and  8;  Roer,  pp,  163,  164. 

II  Vajasaneya  Up.,  9-14,  with  notes ;  Roer,  p.  73. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  13 1 

lation  had,  like  every  similar  phase  of  thought  similarly 
developed,  to  evolve  the  distinction  between  esoterics 
and  exoterics.  There  are  two  sciences,  the  higher  and 
the  lower,  and  for  those  incapable  of  either  there  are 
works.*  Those  who  perform  works,  ?>.,  the  customary 
sacrifices,  gain  only  a  perishable  and  transient  reward, 
and  must  "  undergo  again  decay  and  death,"  "  go  round 
and  round,  oppressed  by  misery,  like  blind  people  led 
by  blind."  f  The  lower  knowledge  comprehends  the 
several  Vedas,  accentuation,  ritual,  grammar,  &c. ;  but 
this,  while  securing  a  higher  reward  than  works,  still 
leaves  the  individual  soul  the  victim  of  birth  and  death. 
Knowledge  of  Brahma  as  the  universal  soul,  of  the  in- 
dividual soul  as  Brahma,  can  alone  give  rest.  "Thus 
knowing,  he  (Vamadeva),  after  the  destruction  of  this 
body,  being  elevated  (from  this  world),  and  having  ob- 
tained all  desires  in  the  place  of  heaven,  became  im- 
mortal." X  "  Whoever  knows  this  supreme  Brahma 
becomes  even  Brahma,  so  overcomes  grief,  he  overcomes 
sin,  he  becomes  immortal."  § 

In  the  Upanishads  the  belief  in  immortality  thus  re- 
ceives marked  development.  Theosophic,  as  distin- 
guished from  sacerdotal  speculation,  now  brings  it  into 
clear  and  recognized  relation  with  the  idea  of  God. 
The  former  attempts  to  understand  the  Universe  from 
its  notion  of  the  ultimate  or  highest  Being;  the  latter 
from  its  own  claims  and  modes  of  worship.  The  one, 
since  it  educes  all  beings  from   the  absolute  Unity,  as- 

*  Mundaka  Up.,  i.  i,  4,  5;  Roer,  p.   151.     See  also  Kena  and 
Katha  Ups.,  with  Roer's  introductions  and  notes, 
t  Mundaka  Up.,  i.  2,  7,  8  ;  Roer,  154. 
X  Aitareya  Up.,  ii.  4,  6 ;   Roer,  p.  32. 
§  Mundaka  Up.,  iii.  2.  9 ;  Roer,  164. 


132  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

serts  the  eternity  of  the  soul ;  but  the  other,  since 
mainly  anxious  to  found  and  extend  its  own  claims, 
asserts  an  immortality  whose  good  or  evil  states  it  can 
command.  Theosophic  speculation,  again,  does  not, 
like  philosophic,  construct  its  idea  of  God  out  of  its 
idea  of  man,  but  conversely,  its  idea  of  man  out  of  its 
idea  of  God.  Hence,  since  it  starts  with  the  absolute, 
it  loses  the  notion  of  personality  both  as  regards  God 
and  man,  and  the  only  relations  it  can  conceive  are  meta- 
physical, not  moral,  necessary  and  evolutional,  not 
voluntary  and  creational.  It  is  not  concerned  with  the 
question  of  immortality  as  such — that  is  settled  by  its 
fundamental  assumption.  Nothing  that  has  issued 
from  the  universal  soul  can  perish.  The  only  questions 
that  can  concern  it  touch  the  processes  of  evolution  and 
involution,  emanation  from  God  and  return  into  Him. 
The  first  process  can  admit  indefinite  gradations  of 
being  between  God  and  man,  as  the  Gnostic  systems 
witness ;  the  second  can  admit  as  many  stages  and 
transmutations  of  being,  as  Brahmanism  can  best  ex- 
emplify. The  Upanishads  have  thus  developed  the 
notion  of  immortality  into  that  of  eternity,  and  made 
individuality  an  evil  and  a  privation,  since  the  detention 
of  the  individual  from  return  into  the  universal  soul. 
And  so,  at  this  point,  theosophic  speculation  and  sacer- 
dotalism join  hands  ;  both  seeking  union  with  Brahma, 
renounce  the  belief  in  a  personal  immortality. 

The  following  dialogue  well  illustrates  the  doctrine 
and  spirit  of  the  Upanishads.  Yajnavalkya,  about  to 
withdraw  into  the  forest  to  meditate  upon  Brahma  and 
attain  immortality,  wishes  to  take  farewell  of  his  wife 
Maitreyi.  She  asks  him,  "  What  my  lord  knoweth  (of 
immortality)  may  he  tell  that  to  me  ? " 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  133 

Yajnavalkya  replied,  "  Thou  who  art  truly  dear  to  me, 
thou  speakest  dear  words.  Sit  down,  I  will  explain  it  to 
thee,  and  listen  well  to  what  I  say."  And  he  said,  "  A 
husband  is  loved,  not  because  you  love  the  'husband, 
but  because  you  love  in  him  the  Divine  Spirit  (atma,  the 
absolute  self).  A  wife  is  loved,  not  because  we  love 
the  wife,  but  because  we  love  in  her  the  Divine  Spirit ; 
children  are  loved,  not  because  we  love  the  children, 
but  because  we  love  the  Divine  Spirit  in  them.  The 
spirit  it  is  which  we  love  when  we  seem  to  love  wealth* 
Brahmans,  Kshattriyas,  this  world,  the  gods,  all  beings, 
this  universe.  The  Divine  Spirit,  O  beloved  wife,  is 
to  be  seen,  to  be  heard,  to  be  perceived,  and  to  be 
meditated  upon.  If  we  see,  hear,  perceive,  and  know 
him,  O  Maitreyi,  then  this  whole  universe  is  known  to 
us."* 

"  It  is  with  us  when  we  enter  into  the  Divine  Spirit, 
as  if  a  lump  of  salt  was  thrown  into  the  sea :  it  becomes 
dissolved  into  the  water  from  which  it  was  produced, 
and  is  not  to  be  taken  out  again.  But  wherever  you 
take  the  water  and  taste  it,  it  is  salt.     Thus  is  this  great 

*  This  early  Hindu  mysticism  is  far  nobler  than  the  later  mys- 
ticism of  the  Bhagavad-Gita,  where  the  existence  of  all  things  in 
God  is  prostituted  to  the  basest  uses,  to  teach  indifference  to  the 
character  and  results  of  all  actions.  The  earlier  mysticism,  as  ex- 
hibited in  the  dialogue  quoted  in  the  text,  may  be  compared  with 
the  German  mysticism  of  the  fourteenth  century,  to  which  it  bears 
in  some  respects  a  remarkable  resemblance.  The  doctrine  of  love 
in  the  one  paragraph  may  be  compared  with  Eckhart's  ( Wacker- 
nagel's  "  Altdeutsches  Lesebuch,"  p.  891).  The  doctrine  of  the 
other  paragraph  with  Ruysbroek's,  that  all  who  are  "  raised  above 
the  creaturely  condition  into  a  contemplative  life  are  one  with  the 
divine  glory,  yea,  are  that  glory,"  become  "  one  with  the  same 
light,  by  means  of  which  they  see,  and  which  they  see."  (Ruys- 
broek's "  Vier  Schriften,"  p.  144.) 


134  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

endless  and  boundless  Being  but  one  mass  of  knowledge. 
As  the  water  becomes  salt  and  the  salt  becomes  water 
again,  thus  has  the  Divine  Spirit  appeared  from  out  the 
elements  and  disappears  again  into  them.  When  we 
have  passed  away  there  is  no  longer  any  name.  This 
I  tell  thee,  my  wife,"  said  Yajnavalkya. 

Maitreyi  said,  "  My  lord,  here  thou  hast  bewildered 
me,  saying  that  there  is  no  longer  any  name  when  we 
have  passed  away." 

And  Yajnavalkya  replied,  "  My  wife,  what  I  say  is  not 
bewildering,  it  is  sufficient  for  the  highest  knowledge. 
For  if  there  be  as  it  were  two  beings,  then  the  one  sees 
the  other,  the  one  hears,  perceives,  and  knows  the 
other.  But  if  the  one  Divine  Self  be  the  whole  of  all 
this,  whom,  or  through  whom  should  he  see,  hear,  per- 
ceive, or  know  ?  How  should  he  know  himself,  by  whom 
he  knows  everything  (himself).  How,  my  wife,  should 
he  know  himself  the  knower  ?  Thus  thou  hast  been 
taught,  Maitreyi ;  this  is  immortality." 

Having  said  this,  Yajnavalkya  left  his  wife  for  ever, 
and  went  into  the  solitude  of  the  forests.* 

4.    THE   LAWS   OF   MANU.f 

Theosophic  speculation  elaborated  the  notion  of  God 
as  the  world-soul,  from  which,  by  necessary  evolution, 

*  The  above  dialogue,  extracted  from  the  Brihadaranyaka,  is 
abridged  from  a  translation  in  Professor  Max  Miiller's  "  Anc. 
Sans.  Lit.,"  pp.  22-25.  See  also  Colebrooke's  "  Essays,"  p.  39, 
(W.  &  N.'s  ed.). 

t  The  Laws  of  Manu,  as  marking  the  last  development  of  the 
earlier  Brahmanical  sacerdotalism,  are  here  placed  between  the 
earlier  speculations  of  the  Upanishads  and  the  later  speculations  of 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  135 

individual  souls  emanated,  into  which  by  knowledge, 
possible  only  after  many  changes  of  form,  they  returned. 
Sacerdotalism  accepted  and  assimilated  the  notion,  and 
made  it  the  basis  of  its  authority  and  claims.  Of  men, 
the  Brahman  stood  nearest  to  Brahma,  and  was  "  the 
lord  of  the  whole  creation."*  The  other  classes  had 
their  position  and  dignity  determined  by  their  several 
degrees  of  distance  from  the  universal  soul,  and  so  the 
caste  system  was  founded  in  the  divine  order  of  the 
universe.f  Veritable  divinity  was  made  to  hedge  the 
Brahman.  He  was  an  incarnation  of  Dharma.  He  was 
born  above  the  world,  the  chief  of  all  creatures.  The 
wealth  of  the  universe  was  in  fact,  though  not  in  form, 
his.1: 

But  the  peculiar  province  of  sacerdotalism  is  the 
future.  Its  sovereignty  is  possible  only  in  an  age  of 
intense  faith  in  a  hereafter,  whose  graduated  rewards 
and  punishments  are  in  the  hands  of  the  priesthood. 
The  Divina  Commedia  is  the  creation  of  the  same 
century  and  system  as  Innocent  III.  and  Boniface  VIII. 
The  faith  embodied  in  the  detested  Pope  inspired  the 
detesting  poet.  The  same  schoolmen  who  proved  in 
detail  the  claims  of  the  Papacy,  painted  in  detail  the 
horrors  of  hell.  So  while  the  Brahmans  made  the 
theosophic  theory  of  emanation  the  basis  of  their  claims, 
the  sanctions  which  enforced  them  were  drawn  from  the 

the  philosophical  systems.  For  questions  connected  with  their 
date,  etc.,  see  Lassen,  "  Ind.  Alterthumsk.,"  i.  pp.  882  f. ;  Dunck- 
er's  "Geschichte  der  Arier,"pp.  134  f.  (text  and  note). 

*  Laws  of  Manu,  i.  93. 

t  lb.,  i.  31 ;  also  same  relation,  though  on  different  grounds, 
stated,  xii.  40-50. 

X  lb.,  i.  9S-101. 


1 36      THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

migrations  of  the  soul  before  it  could  attain  union  with 
Brahma.  Souls  were  seen  everywhere  and  in  every- 
thing. The  generic  difference  between  minerals  and 
vegetables,  animals  and  men,  men  and  gods,  was  abolish- 
ed. The  present  stood  connected  alike  with  past  and 
future,  determined  by  the  one,  determining  the  other. 
The  theories  of  individual  existence  and  transmigration 
were,  in  a  manner,  combined.  There  were  heavens  for 
the  reward  of  merit,  hells  for  the  punishment  of  demerit, 
each  with  a  graduated  scale,  glorious  enough  in  the  one 
case,  horrible  enough  in  the  other.  When  the  rewards 
of  the  one,  or  the  punishments*  of  the  other,  had  ex- 
hausted the  merit  or  demerit  contracted  in  a  former 
state  of  being,  a  new  birth  had  to  be  undergone,  deter- 
mined by  the  previous  life.t  The  sinner  descended,  the 
righteous  ascended,  in  the  scale  of  existence.  The 
virtuous  Sudra  becomes  a  Vaisya,  the  Vaisya  a  Kshat- 
triya,  the  Kshattriya  a  Brahman,  and  the  Brahman, 
when  a  perfectly  holy  and  sinless  man,  returns  by  knowl- 
edge into  Brahma.t  If  a  man  steals  a  cow,  he  shall 
be  re-born  as  a  crocodile  or  lizard ;  if  grain,  as  a 
rat ;  if  fruit,  as  an  ape.§  He  who  attempts  to  murder 
a  Brahman,  or  sheds  his  blood,  or  kills  him,  is  punish- 
ed a  hundred  or  thousand  years  in  the  several  hells,  and 
then  born  again  and  again  in  animal  forms  degraded  in 
proportion  to  his  crime. ||  And  to  these  mutations  and 
migrations  hardly  any  limit  was  recognized.  The 
soul  might  glide  "  through  ten  thousand  millions "  of 
births  or  more.H  Absorption  was  the  prize  of  the  elect 
few ;  transmigration  the  doom  of  the  many.     Only  the 

*  Manu,  iv.  87-90;  xii.  75,  'j^i. 

t  lb.,  xii.  55.  X  lb.,  ix.  335.  §  lb.,  xii,  62,  64,  67 

II  lb.,  xii.  55.  IT  lb.,  vi.  63. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  137 

selected  Brahmans  attained  the  first ;  almost  the  whole 
world  revolved  in  the  dreary  circle  of  the  second. 

Now,  this  point  of  the  Brahmanical  faith  was  exactly 
the  point  most  intelligible,  most  credible,  and  most 
terrible  to  the  people.*  It  had  grown  up  in  the  bosom 
of  the  ancient  worship,  and  unfolded  itself  with  the 
unfolding  national  mind.  Theosophic  speculations  as 
to  the  world-soul  were  too  recondite  to  be  generally 
understood  ;  but  sacerdotalism,  developing  as  society 
developed,  had  its  claims  and  their  sanctions  uncon- 
sciously conceded.  Transmigration  had  its  roots  in  the 
Brahmanical  conception  of  God  ;  but  the  people  had 
grown  into  it  without  knowing  whence  it  had  sprung, 
or  that  it  differed  in  any  way  from  the  faith  of  their 
fathers.  To  the  thinker,  the  theological  is  the  distinc- 
tive side  of  a  religion  ;  but  to  the  multitude,  the  eschat- 
©logical.  Hebraism  was  strong  in  the  former,  but  weak 
in  the  latter,  element,  and  hence  so  often  broke  down 
before  fiercer  faiths.  Christianity  has  exercised  a 
greater  command  over  peoples,  though  not  over  individ- 
ual minds,  by  its  eschatology  than  by  its  theology.  The 
speculative  intellect  seeks  to  stand  face  to  face  with  the 
ultimate  cause,  the  general  intellect  regards  religion  as 
regulating  the  present  by  its  power  to  determine  the 
future.  Hence  in  India,  while  a  new  speculative  faith 
as  to  God  grew  up  and  assumed  shape  among  the 
Brahmans,  its  eschatology  alone  took  root  among  the 
people.  They  still  worshipped  the  old  Vedic  gods.f 
The  deities  of  sacerdotal  and  theosophic    speculation 

*  Duncker,  "  Gesch.  der  Arier,"  p.  102. 

t  Lassen,  "  Ind.  Alterthumsk.,"  i.  pp.  911  f.j  Duncker,  "Gesch. 
der  Arier,"  pp.  113  f. 


138  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

were  to  them  unknown.  The  funeral  ceremonies  and 
sacrifices  wore  still  the  old  forms.  But  instead  of  the 
old  heaven  of  Yama  and  the  fathers,  absorption  into 
Brahma  had  come ;  instead  of  the  old  "  nethermost 
darkness,"  "  glidings  through  ten  thousand  millions " 
of  births,  with  between  each  almost  as  many  hells.  The 
new  eschatology  was  the  product  of  a  new  theology ;  but 
while  the  first  became  the  people's,  the  second  remained 
the  priest's. 

5.  THE   PHILOSOPHICAL   SYSTEMS. 

The  laws  of  Manu  exhibit  the  development  of  the 
belief  on  the  sacerdotal  side  ;  but  the  philosophical 
systems  its  further  evolution  on  the  speculative.  The 
Hindu  philosophies  were,  as  to  form  and  end,  religious, 
professed  to  be  based  on  the  Vedas,  recognized  these 
as  their  formal  source  and  authority.  Philosophy  has, 
as  a  rule,  lived  outside  the  positive  religions.  No  one 
associates  the  philosophy  with  the  religion  of  Greece, 
save  by  way  of  contrast ;  and  the  Greek  systems  found 
their  characteristic  element,  not  in  their  relation  to  the 
national  worship,  but  to  the  idea  of  virtue  or  the  gen- 
eral conception  of  the  universe.  Modern  philosophy 
from  Bacon  on  the  one  side,  and  Descartes  on  the 
other,  has  stood  and  speculated  and  inquired  outside 
revealed  religion,  and  been  its  best  friend  because  its 
greatest  critic.  But  the  Hindu  philosophies  stood  in 
formal  connection  with  revelation,  although  as  to  prin- 
ciple  they  might  be  Theistic,  Auto-Theistic,  Pantheistic, 
or  Atheistic.  They  differed  as  to  substance,  but  agreed 
as  to  formal  source,  and  so  find  their  proper  parallels, 
not  in   the   Platonic   and   Aristotelian,   Baconian   and 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  139 

Cartesian,  but  in  the  Athanasian  and  Arian,  Augustin- 
ian  and  Pelagian,  Scotist  and  Thomist  systems  and 
methods.  The  Hindu  spirit  was  speculative,  not 
critical,  deductive,  not  inductive,  and  so  sought  truth 
by  the  process  of  abstraction  along  a  single  line. 
Sacerdotalism  gave  to  speculative  thought  its  objects 
and  end,  and  hence  it  did  not  so  much  raise  the  ques- 
tion, What  is  man  ?  as,  Given  soul  as  an  essence 
successively  appearing  under  different  forms,  how  did 
it  arise,  and  how  can  it  cease  to  be  ?  In  the  West, 
except  in  the  earlier  phases  of  Greek  thought,  and 
certain  later  exceptional  instances  simply  demonstrative 
of  the  rule,  there  was  a  generic  idea  of  personality, 
which,  while  admitting  many  specific  differences,  ex- 
cluded, without  discussion,  any  theory  of  transmigration. 
In  India,  on  the  other  hand,  the  notion  of  soul  as  one, 
but  as  transmigrating  through  many  forms,  had  become 
so  fundamental,  that  the  very  conception  of  separate 
disembodied  existence  after  death  was  i/r/i^^r/ excluded. 
The  belief  so  pervaded  thought  and  life,  that  the  notion 
of  the  opposite  was  never  entertained  even  as  a  pos- 
sibility. 

The  Hindu  philosophies,  like  the  European,  have 
thus  generic  similarities  with  only  specific  differences, 
and  their  generic  features  are  the  exact  opposite  of  ours. 
They  stand  related  on  the  speculative  side  to  the 
earlier  theosophic  thought,  on  the  practical  to  the 
sacerdotal.  The  one  relation  is  seen  in  their  notions 
as  to  the  origin  and  cessation  of  personal  existence,  the 
other  in  their  conception  of  its  miserableness  and  hate- 
fulness. 

The  Hindu  philosophies  thus  intensify,  instead  of 
counteracting,  the  sacerdotal  teaching  and  tendencies 


1 40  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TAI I  TV. 

as  to  our  belief.  The  Vedanta  might  assert  that  the 
world  was  an  illusion,  and  Brahma  the  only  reality; 
the  Sankhya  might  affirm  a  dualism,  under  a  Theistic 
or  Atheistic  form ;  the  Nyaya,  whether  dialectic  or 
atomistic  as  to  form,  might  declare  the  existence  of  a 
supreme  soul  and  propound  the  true  method  of  discov- 
ering the  nature  of  things  ;  but  each  system  held  that 
souls  are  eternal,*  that  they  transmigrate  through 
countless  bodies,t  that  the  bondage  to  birth  and  death 
is  due  to  ignorance  and  maintained  by  works,  whether 
good  or  bad.t  Life  is  thus  a  calamity,  personal 
existence  exposure  to  successive  cycles  of  conscious 
miseries  under  multitudinous  forms.  The  grand  problem 
of  all  the  systems  is  thus,  how  to  attain  final  beatitude. 
The  beatitude  known  to  each  is  the  loss  of  conscious 
personality.  The  means  of  attainment  in  each, 
knowledge  or  right  apprehension.  Good  works  and 
bad,  virtue  and  vice,  are,  because  of  their  consequences, 
undesirable,  hinder,  by  creating  merit  or  demerit,  the 
final  emancipation  of  the  soul.§  Virtue  needs  to  be 
rewarded ;  when  its  reward  is  exhausted,  birth  into 
another  form  is  necessary,  and  so  new  virtues  can  only 
prolong  the  miserable  cycle  of  births  and  deaths.  Vice 
needs  to  be  punished  ;  when  its  demerit  is  exhausted, 
birth  must  again  happen,  and  more  vice  leads  to  more 
births  ad  infinitiun.  The  aim  of  the  soul  therefore 
should  be  to  get  quit  of  works,  whether  good  or  bad  ; 

*  See  on  this  point,  "  Aphorisms  from  the  several  Systems,"  in 
"  A  Rational  Refutation  of  the  Hindu  Philos.  Systems,"  by  R.  N. 
S.  Gore,  p.  35,  Dr.  F.  E.  Hall's  translation. 

t  Colebrooke's  "Essays,"  pp.  184,  229,  240,  155. 

X  "  Rational  Refutation,"  pp.  10  £E. 

§  Id.,  p.  19. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA. 


141 


"  the  confinement  of  fetters  is  the  same,  whether  the 
chain  is  of  gold  or  iron."*  And  it  can  do  so  only  by 
knowledge.  It  prevents  actions  from  ripening  into 
merit  or  demerit.  "  Past  sin  is  annulled,  future  offence 
precluded."  "  As  water  wets  not  the  leaf  of  the  lotus, 
so  sin  touches  not  him  who  knows  God  ;  as  the  floss 
on  the  carding  comb  cast  into  the  fire  is  consumed,  so 
are  his  sins  burnt  away."t  Merit  and  demerit  being 
obliterated,  final  beatitude  can  be  attained.  The 
Vedantin  is  identified  with  Brahma ;  the  Sankhya 
student  ceases  to  be  a  self-conscious  personality.  The 
first  "  quitting  his  corporeal  frame  ascends  to  the  pure 
light  which  is  Brahma,  and  comes  forth  identified  with 
him,  conform  and  undivided ;"  "  as  pure  water  dropping 
into  the  limpid  lake  is  such  as  that  is,"1:  "  or  as  a  river 
at  its  confluence  with  the  sea,  merges  therein 
altogether."§  The  second  has  reached  the  point  where 
he  can  say,  "  neither  I  am,  nor  is  aught  mine,  nor  I 
exist ;"  "  yet  soul  remains  awhile  invested  with  body, 
as  the  potter's  wheel  continues  whirling  after  the  pot 
has  been  fashioned,  by  force  of  the  impulse  previously 
given  to  it.  When  separation  of  the  informed  soul  from 
its  corporeal  frame  at  length  takes  place,  and  nature  in 
respect  of  it  ceases,  then  is  absolute  and  final  deliver- 
ance  accomplished."! 

Such  then  was  the  terrible  conclusion  to  which  Hindu 
sacerdotalism  and  speculation  had  alike  come.  In- 
dividual existence  was  a  curse  ;  the  only  immortality 
known  the  ceaseless  succession  of  births  and  deaths. 
Self-annihilation,  conceived  either  as  absorption  or   the 

*  Anonymous  Commentator,  in  Colebrooke's  "Essays,"  p.  232. 

t  Colebrooke,  p.  232. 

X  Id.,  p.  236.  §  Id.,  p.  234.  II  Id.,  p.  164. 


142 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


cessation  of  self-conscious  being,  was  the  only  salvation 
believed  in  or  desired.  Sacerdotalism  had  made 
religion  a  calamity.  Its  modes  of  worship  could  neither 
gladden  the  present  nor  gild  with  hope  the  future. 
The  priesthood  might  stand  proudly  pre-eminent,  but 
its  pre-eminence  was  dangerous,  because  founded  on  dog- 
mas which  created  despair.  There  is  a  limit  to  the 
burdens  the  human  spirit  can  bear,  and  that  limit  had 
been  reached.  A  religion  which  intensified  the  actual 
miseries  of  the  present,  and  the  possible  miseries  of  the 
future,  had  abdicated  its  functions,  and  deserved  only 
what  it  was  sure  soon  to  suffer,  abolition  or  revolution. 

6.    BUDDHISM. 

Buddhism,  at  once  the  offspring  and  the  enemy  of 
Brahmanism,  can  hardly  be  understood  apart  from  the 
India  in  which  it  arose.  It  was  essentially  an  anti- 
sacerdotal  revolution,  specifically  Indian  alike  in  what 
it  affirmed  and  what  it  denied.  The  Brahmanical  gods, 
sacrifices,  ceremonies,  and  inspired  books  it  rejected. 
The  caste  system,  the  very  foundation  of  Hindu  society, 
it  recognized,  but  practically  abolished  in  the  religious 
sphere,  a  preliminary  to  its  general  abolition.*  But 
without,  perhaps,  consciously  building  on  any  previous 
system,  it  appropriated  and  developed  certain  tenden- 
cies and  doctrines  familiar  to  Indian  speculation  and 
translated  them  into  a  faith  and  a  religion  for  the 
people.f 

Buddhism  was  an  ethical,  Brahmanism  a  sacerdotal, 
religion,  and  so  were  specifically  different,  but  both  had 

*  Lassen,  "  Ind.  Alterthurask.,"  ii.  pp.  440  ff. 
t  Id.,  i.  pp.  996  f. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA. 


143 


a  metaphysical  as  distinguished  from  a  personal  basis, 
and  so  were  generically  alike.  The  generic  similarity 
necessitated  resemblances  in  their  respective  concep- 
tions of  the  universe,  the  specific  difference  affected 
their  views  of  life  and  the  conditions  which  determined 
its  happiness  or  misery.  Buddhism  like  Brahmanism 
had  its  graduated  system  of  future  reward  and  punish- 
ment, its  descending  circles  of  hells,  its  ascending 
circles  of  heavens,*  but  unlike  Brahmanism  its  principle 
of  award  in  the  one  case  was  virtue,  in  the  other  vice. 
Hence  the  grand  "  arbiter  of  destiny "  is  Karman, 
moral  action,  the  aggregate  result  of  all  previous  acts.f 
Buddhism,  indeed,  is  nothing  else  than  the  religion  of 
moral  action,  metaphysically  conceived. 

While  Buddhism  is  nominally  atheistic,  it  is  really 
more  theistic  than  Brahmanism.  There  is  more  of  deity 
in  its  moral  order  than  in  the  metaphysical  monism  of 
its  opponent.  A  system  that  makes  high  moral  qualities 
efficient  in  the  unit  and  in  the  universe,  is  theistic  in  a 
better  sense  than  the  pantheism  which  in  its  last  anal- 
ysis makes  evil  and  good  indifferent,  and  God  inclusive  of 
both.  A  recent  writer  on  ethics  has  happily  remarked 
the  resemblance  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  stream  or  ten- 
dency which  makes  for  righteousness  bears  to  the  moral 
action  of  Buddhism,  both  being  attempts  to  express  a 
moral  government  without  a  personal  moral  governor. 
And  the  ethical  element  is  so  strong  in  Buddhism 
because  of  the  idea  of  humanity  which  lives  at  its  heart. 
Indeed  it  has,  like  Christianity,  an  ideal  human  being 
as  its  centre,  and  this  similarity  in  centre  or  root  is  the 

*  Burnouf,  **  Introduction  a  I'Hist.  du  Buddhisme  Indien,"  pp. 
320,  366  f. ;  R.  S.  Hardy,  "  Manual  of  Buddhism,"  chap.  ii. 
t  R.  S.  Hardy's  "  Manual,"  pp.  394  ff. 


144  ^^^  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

cause  of  the  similarity  in  their  ethical  codes,  which  has 
been  so  often  recognized  and  pointedly  mentioned  to  the 
honor  of  Buddhism. 

Buddha's  great  problem  was  the  problem  common  to 
every  Indian  thinker, — How  to  be  delivered  from  misery, 
from  that  greatest  of  evils,  the  everlasting  succession 
of  births  and  deaths.  He  accepted  the  Indian  theory 
of  man — never  seems  to  have  imagined  any  other  as 
possible.  The  sight  of  the  misery  around,  the  thought 
of  the  misery  behind  and  before,  pained  him.  He 
inquired — ^what  is  the  cause  of  age,  of  death,  of  all 
pain?  Birth.  What  is  the  cause  of  birth  ?  Existence. 
What  is  the  cause  of  existence  }  Attachment  to  the 
existent.  What  is  the  cause  of  attachment?  Desire. 
Of  desire  ?  Perception.  Of  perception  ?  The  senses. 
What  is  the  cause  of  the  senses  ?  Name  and  form,  or 
individual  existence.  Of  individual  existence  ?  Con- 
sciousness. Of  consciousness  ?  Ignorance.  To  anni- 
hilate birth,  existence  must  be  annihilated ;  to  annihi- 
late existence,  the  attachment  to  it.  Attachment,  again, 
can  only  be  destroyed  by  destroying  desire,  desire  by 
destroying  perception,  perception  by  destroying  the  sen- 
ses, the  senses  by  destroying  the  consciousness,  and  the 
consciousness  by  destroying  the  ignorance,  which  is  its 
cause.  If  the  ground  of  personal  existence  is  annihila- 
ted, it  cannot  continue,  birth  and  death  cease.* 

What  Buddha  conceived  this  final  deliverance  to  be 
cannot  be  discussed  here  and  now.  Enough  to  say,  a 
religion  without  a  God  could  hardly  promise  a  restful 
but  conscious  immortality.  Nirvana  cannot  be  absorp- 
tion, for  Buddhism  knew  no  world-soul,  no  Brahma,  into 

♦  Duncker,  "  Gesch.  der  Arier,"  pp.  237  f. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  145 

which  the  perfect  man  could  enter,  nor  can  it  be  any 
conscious  state  of  being,  for  the  loss  of  consciousness 
was  the  goal  of  Buddha's  ambition.  The  oldest  defini- 
tions describe  Nirvana  as  "  the  cessation  of  thought, 
since  its  causes  are  removed,"  as  a  condition  "  in  which 
nothing  remains  of  that  which  constitutes  existence."  * 
When  the  soul  enters  Nirvana  it  is  extinguished  like 
a  lamp  blown  out,  and  nothing  remains  but  the  void.f 
"The  only  asylum  and  the  only  reality  is  nothing, 
because  from  it  there  is  no  return,  and  once  at  rest  in 
Nirvana,  the  soul  has  no  longer  anything  to  fear,  nor 
anything  to  expect.  "| 

*  Burnouf.,  ''  Introduction  ^  I'Hist.  du  Bud.  Ind.,"  pp.  73,  83, 
589  f. 

t  lb.,  252. 

X  M.  Barthelemy  S.  Hilaire,  "  Le  Bouddha  et  sa  Religion,"  pp. 
vii.  viii.  See  the  interesting  discussions  as  to  the  meaning  of 
Nirvana,  by  Professor  Max  Miiller,  "  Chips,"  i.  223  f. ;  248  ff.; 
279  £f.  On  the  same  side  stand  the  late  Eug.  Burnouf,  "  Intro- 
duction." «^  jz^/ra,  and  153-155,  211,  521,  &c. ;  "Lotus  de  la  bonne 
Loi,"  pp.  335,  339,  784,  &c. ;  Lassen,  "  Ind.  Alterthumsk.,"  i.  996  ; 
ii.  462 ;  iii.  385,  395;  C.  F.  Koppen,  "  Die  Religion  des  Buddha," 
i.  pp.  306  f.  M.  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire  often,  but  particularly  the 
Avertissement.  On  the  other  side,  holding  that  Nirvana  denotes 
a  state  of  repose,  "  non-agitation,"  "  calm  without  wind,"  stand 
Dr.  Wilson  of  Bombay,  Art.  "  The  Buddhist  Revolution  in  Ind.," 
"Brit,  and  For.  Ev.  Rev.," July,  187 1,  p.  422  ;  Colebrooke's  "Es- 
says," 258;  and  J.  B.  F.  Obry  in  Du  Nirvana  Bouddhique,  a  formal 
reply  to  M.  B.  S.  Hilaire.  Perhaps  the  truth  lies  in  very  equal 
proportions  on  both  sides.  In  Buddhism  as  a  system.  Nirvana  can 
mean  nothing  but  annihilation,  or  extinction,  escape  from  our  own 
personal  existence  without  passing  into  any  other  being  or  form  of 
personal  being.  In  Buddhism  as  a  religion,  Nirvana  may  mean  to 
the  simple-hearted  multitude  "profound  calm,"  undisturbed  by 
successive  births  and  deaths.  Professor  Max  Miiller,  who  has  very 
greatly  modified  his  earlier  views,   now  maintains  that  while  the 

10 


1 46  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

Buddhism  is  a  proof  of  what  a  false  theory  or  immor- 
tality may  become — life  after  death,  a  thing  so  terrible 
that  to  escape  it  man  will  court  annihilation.  The 
Hindu  spirit  had  got  bewildered  in  the  mazes  of  trans- 
migration, and  unable  to  find  a  way  to  a  right  conception 
of  immortality,  it  rose  into  an  absolute  denial  of  both, 
produced  and  propagated  a  religion  founded  on  the 
abolition  of  what  Western  thinkers  used  to  regard  as 
the  fundamental  truths  of  every  faith — the  being  of  God 
and  the  immortality  of  man. 


7.   THE   REFORMED    BRAHMANISM. 

A  religion  so  ancient,  so  highly  organized,  so  strong 
in  the  traditions  and  associations  of  many  centuries  as 
Brahmanism,  could  not  be  easily  vanquished.  An  old 
faith  which  has  the  courage  and  skill  to  reform  itself, 
will  also  have  vitality  and  strength  enough  to  engage 
and  defeat  its  young  opponent.  The  counter-Reforma- 
tion in  Europe  is  a  feeble  type  of  the  Brahmanical  re- 
action in  India.  Roman  Catholicism,  though  it  could 
not  expel  from  the  Continent,  drove  back  its  vigorous 
but  unorganized  enemy  ;  but  revived  Brahmanism  swept 
from  India  the  once-victorious  Buddhism.  The  old 
system  expanded  to  receive  new  and  popular  elements. 
The  people  loved  the  old  gods,  never  knew  or  worship- 
ped the  abstract  deity  of  the  priesthood.     Of  the  old 

metaphysic  of  Buddhism  is  both  Atheistic  and  Nihilistic,  Buddha 
himself  was  an  Atheist,  but  not  a  Nihilist.  See  his  Lecture, 
"  Ueber  den  Buddhistichen  Nihilismus." 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA.  147 

Vedic  Gods,  Vishnu  and  Rudra  had  become  the  chosen 
of  the  people.*  They,  joined  with  the  sacerdotal 
Brahma,  formed  a  new  godhead,  the  famous  Brahmani- 
can  Trimurtti.  Then,  if,  according  to  the  old  mystical 
notion,  the  human  could  be  absorbed  in  the  divine,  why 
not  the  divine  manifested  in  the  human  ?  If  man  could 
become  God,  why  not  God  man  ?  Hence  the  Avatar- 
notion  arose,  and  by  a  well-known  mythical  process  the 
heroes  of  the  old  national  epics,  Rama  and  Krishna, 
were  deified,  and  as  at  once  incarnations  of  the  popular 
deity  and  heroes  of  the  popular  songs,  powerfully  com- 
mended the  old  religion  to  the  Hindu  heart.f  Thus, 
on  both  the  divine  and  human  sides,  the  old  faith  was 
so  modified  as  to  suit,  even  better  than  the  new,  the 
mind  and  condition  of  India. 

Our  belief  so  shared  in  the  general  modification  as 
to  be  in  some  respects  improved,  in  others  deteriorated. 
It  receives  fullest  expression  in  the  Bhagavad-Gita.  The 
general  conception  is  a  crude  Pantheism,  with,  on  the 
one  side,  a  final  absorption,  conditioned  on  knowledge, 
into  deity,  on  the  other  a  hideous  moral  indifferentism, 
which  abolishes  good  and  evil  and  inculcates  action 
without  any  regard  to  consequences.  Krishna  says, 
"  Immortality  and  death,  being  and  not  being,  am  I,  O 
Arjuna."  %    He  is  everything,  its  source,  its  goal,  father 

*  Lassen,  "  Ind.  Alterthumsk.,"  i.  918  ff . ;  ii.  1087.  But  par- 
ticularly Dr.  Muir's  *'  Sanskrit  Texts,"  vol.  iv.,  comparison  of  the 
Vedic  with  the  after  representations  of  the  principal  Indian 
deities. 

t  Duncker,  "  Gesch.  der  Arier,"  p.  322 ;  Muir,  ut  supra,  ch.  ii. 
sect.  V. 

X  ix.19. 


148  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

and  mother  of  this  world,  whence  all  things  and  beings 
come,  whither  all  return.*  The  soul  is  immutable, 
impenetrable,  incombustible,  can  neither  be  pierced  by- 
darts,  nor  burned  by  fire,  nor  drowned  by  water,  nor 
dried  by  wind.f  It  can  wear  out  and  lay  aside  old  and 
assume  new  bodies,  as  the  body  can  change  its  gar- 
ments. $  Souls  are  thus  conceived  as  immortal,  or, 
rather,  eternal,  without  beginning  or  end,  but  as  trans- 
migrating through  many  bodies.  Man  can  be  born  into 
nobler  and  happier  forms  of  personal  being,§  and  be- 
tween birth  and  death  taste  divine  joys  in  the  heaven 
of  Indra.||  Till  final  emancipation  is  obtained  birth 
and  death  succeed  each  other,  but  when  knowledge  of 
the  divine  being  is  acquired,  birth  ceases,  the  soul 
attains  deity.lf  Quiescence,,  the  supreme  beatitude,  is 
realized,  and  to  the  Supreme  the  soul  is  joined. 

Here,  then,  our  inquiry  into  the  Hindu  belief  in  im- 
mortality may  end.  Its  historical  conclusion  was  the 
antithesis  and  contradiction  of  its  historical  beginning. 
Our  purpose  was  to  trace  the  several  steps  in  this  sad- 
dest, most  extensive  and  injurious  revolution  of  religious 
thought,  and  the  lessons  suggested  the  reader  can  best 
discover  for  himself.  An  exaggerated  sacerdotalism 
turned  the  Hindu  spirit  from  travelling  along  the  only 
line  on  which  it  could  have  reached  a  right  conception 
of  God,  and,  without  that,  no  right  conception  of  man, 
as  mortal  or  immortal,  was  possible.  Our  thoughts 
weave  themselves  more  subtly  than  we  imagine  into  con- 


ix.  7-10;  16-18.        t  ii.  23-25.  }  ii.  22. 

vi.  41,42.  ■  II  ix.  20.  IT  ii-  51 ;  iv.  9,  la 


THE  BELIEF  IN  INDIA .  j  49 

sistency  and  form,  and  the  unsystematized  faith  of  a 
people  will  often  be  found  more  logical  than  any  reason- 
ed system.  The  belief  in  a  personal  immortality  can 
live  only  when  rooted  in  faith  in  a  personal  Gk)d. 

"  Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust : 
Thou  made  St  man,  he  knows  not  why; 
He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die ; 

And  Thou  hast  made  him :  Thou  art  just.** 


150  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE. 
PART  III. 

INTRODUCTORY. 
I. 

HTHE  belief  in  Immortality,  while  a  pre-eminent  pro- 
duct of  Greek  thought,  was  almost  unknown  to 
Greek  religion.  The  gods  of  Olympos  ruled  the  pres- 
ent; death  was  the  limit  of  their  dominion.  Their  wor- 
ship neither  awed  by  the  fear,  nor  cheered  with  the  hope, 
of  a  future  life.  In  the  later  mythology  which  grew  up 
within  and  around  the  mysteries,  the  gods  of  the  under- 
world distributed  rewards  and  punishments  to  the  dead, 
but  they  exercised  no  actual  government  over  the  living. 
While  of  all  ancient  peoples  the  Greeks  had  the  pro- 
foundest  faith  in  the  reign  of  moral  Law,  no  ancient 
people  seem  so  little  conscious  of  any  religious  connec- 
tion between  the  present  and  a  future  life.  Greece  was 
in  this  respect  a  contrast  to  almost  all  the  other  Indo- 
European  nations.  The  Iranians  founded  on  their 
ethical  dualism  a  positive  and  intelligible  theory  of  im- 
mortality— a  theory  which,  passing  first  into  Judaism 
and  then  into  Christianity,  has  played  so  great  a  part 
in  the  religious  history  of  the  world.  The  Teutonic 
tribes  so  conceived  the  future  as  to  reduce  death  to  a 
"  home-going,"  ''  a  return  to  the  Father."  The  Kelts 
believed  in  a  metempsychosis  which  made  the  future 
life  as  active  as  the  present.  The  Indian  Aryans  evolved, 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  151 

as  already  seen,  from  their  early  naturalism  a  religion 
whose  distinctive  characteristic  was  the  continued  ex- 
istence of  the  transmigrating  soul.  But  the  Greek, 
whose  conception  of  life  was  the  most  ethical,  whose 
religious  faith  was  the  most  beautiful,  believed  a  religion 
which  left  him  to  live  and  die  without  the  hope  of  an 
immortal  hereafter. 

The  causes  of  this  peculiarity  in  the  religious  devel- 
opment of  Greece  can  be  fully  ascertained  only  by  a 
minute  study  of  its  successive  phases.  Here,  however, 
two  may  be  specified  :  (i)  the  national  mythology  crys- 
tallized into  permanent  form  before  the  national  mind 
attained  to  full  religious  consciousness  ;  (2)  religious 
thought  did  not  develop  within,  but  without,  this  my- 
thology. 

The  Greek  mind  lived  long  in  the  mythical  and  im- 
aginative stages.  Centuries  •  after  the  Indians  and 
Iranians  had  elaborated  great  religious  systems,  the 
Hellenes  remained  in  the  simplest  nature-worship. 
Their  manner  of  life  had  been  unfavorable  to  the  birth 
and  growth  of  religious  thought,  but  conducive  to  the 
formation  of  brave  and  resolute  character.  The  hero 
was  more  to  the  Greek  than  to  the  Indian  j  the  god 
more  to  the  Indian  than  the  Greek.  In  the  Vedic 
hymns  the  theological  side  is  the  predominant,  but  in 
the  Homeric  poems,  apart  from  the  general  idea  of  the 
whole,  the  subordinate* — the  divine  action  the  mere 
background  of  the  human.  The  first  are  religious  ;  the 
second  secular.  The  Rishis  composed  their  hymns  to 
praise  the  gods  ;  but  Homer  made  his  poems  to  glorify 
the  heroes.     The  Vedic  mythology  is  the  younger^  but 

*  Welcker,  "  Griechis.  Gotterlehre,  ii.  p.  69. 


1^2  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

the  more  religious;  the  Homeric  the  older,  but  the 
more  mythical.  The  Hindu  hymns  show  a  dependence 
of  man  on  God,  an  abasement  of  self,  a  need  of  priestly 
mediation  and  sacrifice  such  as  the  Hellenic  epics  do 
not  reveal ;  yet  these,  as  later,  are  more  perfect  expres- 
sions of  the  Greek  than  those  are  of  the  Indian  mind. 
The  latter  are  more  individual,  the  former  more  national. 
Homer  and  Hesiod,  as  Preller  says,  are  only  "  mythical 
collective  names."*  Behind  them  lie  centuries  of  mytho- 
logical development:  in  them  the  results  are  concen- 
trated, co-ordinated,  and  combined.  The  Hellenic  faith 
thus  crystallized  at  the  point  where  the  mythical  deposit 
was  greatest.  The  natural  elements  in  it  were  many ; 
the  subjective  and  spiritual  were  few.  The  myths  of 
the  instinctive  had  been  translated  into  the  mythology 
of  the  imaginative  stage,  but  not  into  the  beliefs  of  the 
reflective. 

The  Greek  Theogony  remained,  on  the  whole,  as 
Homer  and  Hesiod  had  made  it;t  received  mythical 
developments  or  additions,  but  did  not  change  its  char- 
acter. But  while  it  stood  still,  mind  grew,  became  con- 
scious of  many  things  that  did  not  lie  in  the  old  natural- 
isms, even  as  poetically  transfigured.  Religion  degen- 
erated into  a  beautiful  accessory  to  a  singularly  rich  and 
genial  life  ;  thought  became  the  actual  ethical  and 
religious  Teacher. $  The  separation  or  antagonism  of 
religion  and  thought  is,  indeed,  a  misfortune,  pre-emi- 

*  "  Griechis.  Mythologie,"  i.  p.  14. 

t  Herodotos,  ii.  53. 

\  Bunsen,  "  Christianity  and  Mankind,"  iv.  p.  195.  For  a  pro- 
found and  appreciative  discussion  of  the  relations  of  philosophy  and 
religion,  see  Hegel's  "  Geschich.  der  Philos.,"  i.  76  £f.,  "  Religions- 
philos.,"  i.  20  ff. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  153 

nently  so  for  the  religion  ;  for  when  it  ceases  to  lead 
the  national  thought,  it  falls  behind  the  nation, — crys- 
tallizes only  to  be  hopelessly  pulverized.  And  so 
ancient  Greece  experienced.  The  myths  delighted  the 
fine  fancy  of  the  people,  the  religious  festivals  gave  to 
the  lighter  side  of  the  national  character  a  sphere  in 
which  to  play ;  but  the  higher  functions  of  religion 
passed  to  poetry  and  philosophy.  If  in  the  days  of 
Pausanias  the  old  faith  still  lived  in  quiet  rural  spots,  it 
had  died  centuries  before  in  the  centres  of  intellectual 
activity.  The  Exegetae  might  repeat  and  explain  in  the 
temples  the  old  myths,  but  the  true  divines  were  poets, 
like  Pindar,  in  whose  odes  the  ancient  mythology  was 
exalted  and  transfigured.*  Zeus  might  still  in  the 
popular  traditions  thunder  from  Olympus,  or  wage  an 
unequal  contest  with  his  subtle  and  termagant  queen, 
but  in  the  hands  of  ^schylos  he  had  been  raised  into  a 
diviner  deity.f  The  people  might  believe  that  once 
"  immortal  gods  and  mortal  men  partook  of  a  common 
table,  and  lived  under  a  common  roof  ;"t  but  philosophy 
had  in  Plato  sublimed  God  into  the  Supreme  Good, 
which  only  purified  reason  could  apprehend. §  Priests 
and  people  might  imagine  the  gods  to  be  animated  by 
passion  and  pleased  by  sacrifice,  but  speculation  had 
resolved  deity  into  the  unmoved  mover  of  all  things.  || 
The  superstitious  or  the  politic  might  consult  the  oracle 

*  "Olym.,"  i.  44-57  ;  ix.  35-62  ;  Bunsen's  "God  in  Hist.,"  ii.  p. 
149;  Grote's  Hist,  of  Greece,"  pp.  365  f.  (ed.  1869). 

t  "Suppl.,"  81-95,  518-521,  584-590;  "Agamem."  1461,  1463 
(Paley'sed.  1861). 

X  Aratus,  "  Phoen.,  91  ;  Pausanius,  viii.  2. 

§  "  Repub.,"  vi.  vol.  ii.  509. 

U  Aristotle,  "Metaph.,"  xi.  vii.  2-€. 


154 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


at  Delphi,  but  the  sage  sought  within  himself  the  only 
voice  he  could  obey.  Religion  and  religious  thought 
had  thus  not  only  parted  company,  but  fallen  into  vio- 
lent antagonism.  Devout  men,  no  longer  able  to  be 
religious  in  the  old  sense,  because  religious  in  a  deeper, 
had  to  distinguish  between  religion  as  mythical,  civil, 
and  philosophical.*  The  old  religion  crystallized  at 
the  imaginative  stage,  could  satisfy  only  those  who 
remained  there  :  those  who  had  passed  beyond  it  had  to 
create  in  its  stead  a  religion  of  religious  thought. 

The  peculiar  order  and  conditions  of  religious  devel- 
opment in  Greece  thus  made  the  belief  in  immortality 
not  so  much  the  property  of  its  religion  as  of  its  thought. 
Had  thought  developed  under  the  mythico-religious 
forms  until  it  had  changed  their  matter,  in  other  words, 
had  the  religion  grown  with  the  mind  of  the  nation  and 
passed  with  it  from  the  mythical  into  the  reflective  stage, 
then  our  belief  would  have  risen  as  a  religious  doctrine, 
shaped  and  enforced  by  religious  sanctions.  But,  as  it 
was,  the  poets  became  the  true  priests  of  Greece,t  em- 
bodying in  Epic  Ode  or  Tragedy  the  ideas  of  Moral 
Law  and  Order  and  Judgment ;  the  philosophers  her 
true  prophets,  revealing  mind  in  Nature,  the  Supreme 
Good  within,  above,  and  before  man.  So  our  belief, 
ignored  by  the  popular  religion,  sought  recognition  and 
development  at  the  hands  of  the  actual  priests  and 
prophets.  It  rose  in  answer  to  the  demand  first  of  the 
religious  and  moral  instincts,  and  then  of  the  reason. 
The  answer  to  the  former  was  given  at  first  crudely  in 
the  mysteries,  then  clearly  and  grandly  in  the  lyrical 

*  Plutarch,  "  De  Plac.  Philos./'i.  6;  "Amator.,"  i8 ;  M.  Scaev- 
ola  apud  Augus.,  "  De  Civit.  Dei."  iv.  27;  Varro,  ib.  iv.  5. 
t  Welcker,  "  Griechis.  Gotterlehre,"  ii.  66. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  155 

and  tragic  poets  ;  the  answer  to  the  latter  in  the  nobler 
and  more  spiritual  philosophies.  The  mysteries  were 
attempts  to  supplement  the  deficiencies  of  the  national 
religion ;  the  philosophies  to  reach  ultimate  and  univer- 
sal truth.  The  belief,  as  expressed  in  the  first,  witness- 
es only  to  a  need  felt  alike  by  Greek  and  barbarian,  but 
as  expressed  in  the  second,  to  a  demand  made  by  the 
constructive  reason  at  its  best.  The  mysteries  were  in 
their  use  and  meanings  national,  significant  only  for  a 
land  whose  public  religion  knew  no  future  state  j  but  the 
philosophies  and  their  results  have  a  universal  import- 
ance, have  helped  and  still  help  to  shape  the  faith  of  the 
Christian  world. 

Our  belief  thus  unfolded  in  Greece  under  conditions 
precisely  the  reverse  of  those  which  existed  in  India, 
and  as  the  conditions  differed,  so  did  the  results.  The 
principles  which  imply  or  lead  to  transmigration  were 
alien  to  the  Greek  spirit.  It  had  seized  too  firmly  the 
notion  of  personality,  alike  as  to  gods  and  men,  of  free- 
dom, of  the  ethical  principles  implied  in  the  government 
of  the  world  and  in  the  nature  of  man,  to  allow  metemp- 
sychosis to  obtain  a  permanent  foothold  on  Grecian 
soil.  Then,  too,  the  belief  in  immortality  was  never 
general  in  Greece.*  A  religion  alone  could  have 
nationalized  it.  Beliefs  which  depend  on  a  given  moral 
or  metaphysical  conception  of  the  universe  can  never  be 
general.  But  while  religion  alone  can  give  universality, 
thought  alone  can  give  perpetuity  to  a  belief,  adapt  it  to 
changed  times,  defend  it  against  novel  objections,  re- 
concile it  with  new  sciences  or  fresh  discoveries.  If  the 
faith  in  immortality  has  lived  into  this  nineteenth  cen- 

*  Blackie,  "  Four  Phases  of  Morals,"  p.  255. 


156  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

tury,  it  is  in  great  part  because  Christianity  has  been 
married  to  the  spirit  and  many  of  the  results  of  the 
higher  Greek  Philosophy.  Our  former  paper  led  us  to 
the  study  of  a  belief  the"  antithesis  of  our  own,  but  our 
present  leads  us  to  the  study  of  one  of  its  sources. 
While  in  Palestine  the  Messianic  belief  and  hope,  which 
blossomed  into  the  Christ  of  Christianity,  were  putting 
forth  their  tender  shoots,  the  faith  in  an  immortal  here- 
after for  man  was  seeking  in  Greece  basis  and  form. 
The  history  of  that  search  is  what  this  paper  attempts 
to  give. 

II.    HOMER. 

The  Homeric  poems  form  the  natural  starting-point 
of  our  inquiry.  They  are  impersonal  in  the  highest 
sense — mirror  the  faith,  not  of  a  man,  but  of  an  age. 
For  the  Greeks,  even  more  than  for  us,  the  significant 
point  was  the  nationality  of  the  poems,  not  the  individ- 
uality of  the  poet.  The  doctrine  of  a  future  state  ex 
hibited  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  was  the  doctrine  held 
by  the  then  Hellenic  peoples.  It  was  not  peculiar  to 
the  Man  Homer — the  poet's  own  doctrine,  "  not  only  a 
defect  in  his  system  of  mythology,  but  a  striking  eccen- 
tricity of  his  genius."*  The  picture  he  draws  may  be 
"  for  this  world  only,  for  the  mortality,  not  for  the  im- 
mortality of  man,"t  but  the  picture  is  faithful  alike  in 
its  minute  details  and  general  effect.  Poems  like  the 
Homeric  can  fulfil  their  end  only  so  far  as  faithful  pic- 
tures of  the  men  and  the  religion  they  portray.  The 
heroes  were  always  dear  to  the  Hellenic  heart,  and  had 

*  Colonel  Mure,  "  Crit.  Hist  of  Lang,  and  Lit.  of  Anc.  Greece," 
i.  p.  495- 

t  Gladstone,  "  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age,"  ii.  p.  393. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  157 

Homer  given  them  a  worse  fate  hereafter  than  the  pop- 
ular faith  did,  his  songs  would  have  awakened  censure 
rather  than  applause.  Certain  distinguished  thinkers, 
indeed,  showed  small  mercy  to  the  old  blind  poet. 
Pythagoras  consigned  him  to  punishment  in  Hades.* 
Herakleitos  would  have  expelled  him  and  his  songs  from 
the  national  games.f  Plato  banished  him  from  his 
ideal  Republic,^  in  great  part  because  of  his  sins  on  this 
very  point.§  But,  then,  these  men  judged  the  popular 
faith  as  severely  as  they  judged  Homer.  What  had 
pleased  his  contemporaries  offended  the  philosophers. 
The  first  question  to  be  discussed  is  this,  Did  the 
Homeric  men  believe  that  any  part  or  element  of  man 
continued  to  exist  after  death .?  They  believed  that  the 
soul,  (I'oyj^^  so  soon  as  death  loosened  its  bands, ||  quitted 
the  body  by  the  mouth,ir  or  a  mortal  wound,**  and  either, 
restless  and  unhappy  while  the  body  was  unhonored 
with  funeral  rites,  haunted  the  earth,tt  or,  when  it  had 
been  so  honored,  descended  to  live  a  ghostly  life  in 
Hades.tt  But  what  was  the  (pox^jt  Its  meaning  in 
Homer  is  peculiar,  alike  removed  from  the  simple 
etymological  §§  and  the  later  refined  philosophical  sense. 

*  Hieronymus  the  Peripatetic,  in  "  Diogenes  Laer.,"  viii.  21. 

t  "  Diog.  Laer.,"  ix.  i. 

X  "Repub.,"  bk.  ii.  vol.  ii.  379  ff.  (Steph.) ;  bk.  x.  vol.  ii.  595  ff. 
See  also  the  familiar  lines  of  Xenophanes,  which  declare  that 
what  both  Homer  and  Hesiod  relate  of  the  gods  would  be  a  dis- 
grace to  men,  "  Sext.  Empir.  adv.  Math.,"  i.  289 ;  ix.  193. 

§  Repub.,"  bk.  iii.  vol.  ii.  386  (Steph.).  ||  "  Iliad,"  viii.  123. 

1  lb.,  ix.  409.  **  lb.  xiv.  518  ;  xvi.  505. 

tt  lb.,  xxiii.  65  ff.  XX  lb.,  xvi.  85  f. ;  xxii.  362. 

§§  Curtius  ("  Griechis.  Etymologic,"  pp.463,  482,  654)  deiives 
V^;^;w,  .whence  V^v^:^,  from  a  root  spu,  whence  also  <l>vGa^  ^v(7a«, 
&c. ;  Sansk.,  pupphu-sa-s,  the  lungs ;  pttppha-la-m,  wind.      Latin. 


158  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

It  means  more  than  the  breath,  because  a  shadowj 
personaUty  remains  to  it  after  death,  but  less  than  mind 
or  spirit.  Perhaps  word  and  idea  are  aUke  untranslata- 
ble, escape  our  mental  grasp  as  the  shadowy  Mother  of 
Odysseus  eluded  his  embrace.  It  may  be  said,  as  in  a 
qualified  sense  true,  that  when  v''^/'?  denotes  what  a 
living  man  possesses,  its  etymological  meaning  is  appar- 
ent; but  when  it  denotes  what  lives  after  death,  its 
philosophical  meaning  is  latent. 

A  short  glance  at  the  Homeric  psychology  as  a  whole 
may  help  us  to  understand  the  meaning  of  (poyij* 
There  are  two  classes  of  psychological  terms  in  Homer. 
The  one  does,  the  other  does  not,  localize  the  mental 
faculties,  or  rather,  the  one  does,  the  other  does  not,  use 

Pusula,  pustula;  Lithuanian, /z/j-/^,  to  blow, /«j-/i^,  a  bladder.  Cf. 
Fick  ("  Vergleich.  Worterbuch,"  p.  626),  who  also  derives  ^vaa^ 
&c.,  from  the  root  spu^  to  breathe,  without,  however,  making  any 
reference  to  tpvx^-  Though  the  words  denotive  of  soul  in  the 
several  Indo-European  tongues  differ  as  to  root,  yet  they  agree, 
more  or  less,  as  to  idea.  The  et}Tnology  of  the  Sanskrit  atman  is, 
indeed,  uncertain  (Bopp.  "  Comp.  Gram.,"  i.  p.  152  (Eng.  trans.)  ; 
Miiller's  Anc.  Sansk.  Lit.,"  p.  21,  note  i) ;  and  the  derivation  which 
identifies  its  root  with  an^  whence  Gr.  avefiog,  Latin,  animus, 
am'ma  (Fick.,  "Vergleich.  Worterb.,"  pp.  19,  7.  Cf.  Curtius, 
*'  Griechis.  Etym.,"  p.  286),  is  hardly  possible.  The  word  used  in 
the  Teutonic  dialects,  Goth.,  saivala,  O.  H.  G.  seola  sela;  M.  H.  G. 
slle;  A.  G.  S.  saul;  our  soul,  Dan.,  sj'dl,  is  related  in  root  with  the 
Goth,  saivs,  sea  (Grimm,  "  Deuts.  MythoL,"  p.  786.  Von  Raumer 
in  Delitzsch,  "Bib.  Pyschol.,  p.  120),  which  is,  of  course,  in  certain 
respects  air-like.     But  see  Fick,  p.  885. 

*  Nagelsbach,  "  Homerische  Theologie,"  pp.  380-397  (2d  ed.), 
with  the  valuable  notes  of  the  editor  ;  Volcker,  ■^vxr]  und  eMw/lov ; 
Nitzsch,  "  Anmerkungen  zu  Homer's  Odyssee,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  189  ff.; 
Welcker,  "  Griechis.  Gotterlehre,"  i.  pp.  805  ff.,  may  be  consulted, 
especially  the  first  two,  for  a  fuller  exposition  of  the  Homeric 
pyschology  than  is  here  possible. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  j^g 

the  name  of  a  physical  organ  to  denote  a  mental  faculty. 
To  the  first  class  belong  such  terms  as  <pphz^^  V'^op^ 
xaftdirj^  xTJp^  ffrr^Ooc; ;  to  the  second,  terms  like  8ofjL6<;, 
ixivoc;^  vooq.  *  An  analytical  exposition  of  these  terms 
is  here  impossible,  but  it  may  be  said  of  them  generally 
that  ^pivsq  and  Oufioq  are  the  more  generic,  the  others 
the  more  specific.  Sensation,  perception,  thought, 
memory,  will,  consciousness,  are*  attributed  to  the  two 
former.f  They  are  often  co-ordinate  terms  used  to 
denote  the  entire  mental  nature  of  man.J  Of  the  other 
and  more  restricted  terms,  v6oq  denotes  the  intellectual, 
fiiuo^  the  active  powers,  while  ^rop,  xapdC-q,  xrjp,  are 
used,  with  specific  differences,  vaguely  and  extensively, 
like  our  heart,  for  the  emotive  nature  of  man,  alike  on 
its  active  and  passive  sides.  But  among  these  psycho- 
logical terms  4'^'/'^  ^^s  no  place.  No  intellectual  func- 
tion is  ascribed  to  it,  no  mental  or  moral  action,  no 

*  The  earliest  psychological  terms  seemed  to  have  been  formed 
either  from  the  bodily  organ  affected  by  the  mental  act  or  emotion, 
or  from  the  effect  produced  by  mental  states  on  the  body  as  a 
whole.  Hence  the  two  classes  of  terms  noticed  in  the  text.  The 
functional  terms  refer  to  the  heart  and  breast  rather  than  the 
head — naturally  so  with  a  people  accustomed  to  act  and  feel  rather 
than  think.  Of  the  other  class  of  terms,  dvp-dg  comes  from  a  root, 
dhu,  to  sound,  to  rush,  to  rage  (Fick,  "  Vergleich.  Worterb.,"  p. 
103 ;  Curtius,  "  Griechis.  Etym.,  243),  and  its  uses  seem  to  have 
risen  from  the  analogous  effects  of  a  storm  on  nature  and  strong 
feeling  or  passion  on  the  body.  Hence  Plato  ("  Krat.,"  419)  is 
partially  right  in  deriving  dvudq  from  the  rushing  and  boiling  of  the 
soul, — soul  being  understood  in  the  latter  sense.  Mevof,  again,  is 
from  a  root,  men  or  man,  which  possibly  denoted  the  tense  or 
strained  state  of  the  body  seeking  to  grasp  a  thing  desired.  But 
see  Curtius  ("  Gr.  Etym.,"  291  f.). 

t  "II.,"  xi.  682,  cf.  vii.  189;  "II.,"  XV.  81,  cf.  "Od.."xviii.  228; 
"II.,"  i.  193;  V.  671 ;  XV.  163.  X  "  111.,"  iv.  163,  and  often. 


l6o  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

faculty  of  thinking,  feeling,  or  willing.  It  is  often  the 
sign  and  synonyme  of  life,  but  never  of  spirit  or  any 
spiritual  power.  It  is,  indeed,  joined  with  Oo<x6q*  and 
ixhoq^  but  then  these  words,  when  thus  connected,  lose 
their  psychological  and  take  a  mere  physical  sense. 
Just  as  in  our  popular  speech  certain  terms,  e.g.^ "  heart'* 
or  "  head,"  have  both  a  physical  and  psychological  im- 
port, so  was  it  in  the  Strictly  popular  speech  of  Homer. 
And  as  it  is  often  hard  to  tell  whether  "heart"  and 
"head  "  be  used  in  their  material  or  spiritual  sense,  so 
now  and  then  it  can  hardly  be  determined  whether 
Homer  means  by  a  given  term,  e.g.^  <fpivsq^  a  physical 
organ  or  a  mental  faculty,  or,  e.g.^  iiivoq^  a  manifestation 
of  spiritual  or  material  life4  But  while  the  psycho- 
logical terms  have  also  a  physical  sense,  (puxyj  has  only 
the  latter.  They  in  their  lower  sense  may  be  synony- 
mous with  (poyijj  but  never  in  their  higher.  Death  may 
be  described  with  equal  indifference  as  the  Ooiio^  or  the 
(poxTj  leaving  the  body,§  but  the  latter  can  never,  like 
the  former,  know,  or  hesitate,  or  perceive,  fpoxi],  in 
short,  is,  in  Homer,  a  physical  term  j  denotes  the  bodily, 
not  the  spiritual,  life. 

The  powers  denoted  by  the  psychological  terms  cease 
to  be  at  death,  but  the  (I'^X^  continues  to  exist.  The 
6uiJ.6q,  used  as  the  synonyme  of  (po^ij,  is,  indeed,  said  to 
descend  to  Hades,||  but  the  assimilation  of  the  terms  is 
never  carried  so  far  as  to  allow  the  Oufxog  to  reside 
there.lF    That  is  possible   to   the  (po;c)j  alone.     Then 

*  "  II.,"  xi.  334 ;  "Od.,"  xxi,  154.  t  "  IL,"  v.  296. 

t  Nagelsbach,  "  Horn.  Theol ,"  p.  386. 

§  "  II.,"  iv.  470  ;  xii.  386,  cf.  v.  696;  xiv.  518.     ||  "II.,"  vii.  13L 
^  "Od.,"  xi.  221,  222,  where  the  Ovfidg  and  the  V^;i:^  are  ex- 
pressly  distinguished,  the  latter  alone  being  in  Hades. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  i6i 

<pphz(;  are  denied  to  the  dead.  Achilles  exclaims,  when 
he  sees  the  shade  of  Patroklos,  "  Oh,  strange  !  in  the 
house  of  Hades  there  is  soul  and  shadow,  but  no  mind  " 
{ipphtq?)*  Teiresias,  the  Theban  seer,  has,  indeed,  a 
steadfast  mind  (jpixivsq  e/j.-edoc)  and  understanding 
(yoovjjhut  in  this  he  is  alone  among  the  dead;  "the 
others  flit  like  shadows,"!  are  but  "  the  ghostly  forms 
of  deceased  mortals,"  without  consciousness  or  thought 
(^a<fpadizq)4  They  are  dxrjpcoc,^  without  xTjp  (cor,  heart); 
d/jLs>7j>d  xdprj'^a,\\  beings  without  pi>oq.  Homer  thus 
seems  careful  to  deny  to  the  (^'u^rj  the  intellectual  and 
active  powers  characteristic  of  the  living  man.  It  is 
out  of  the  body,  as  it  was  in  it,  without  any  spiritual 
qualities. 

How,  then,  does  Homer  conceive  the  ^o^^  ?  What 
kind  and  degree  of  being  does  he  attribute  to  the  dead  ? 
The  (f'^XV  is  an  ecdtoXov ;  ^  the  (^'u  at  dwelling  in  Hades 
are  etdojXd  xaiiovrcDv**  the  ghostly  forms  of  deceased 
or  worn-out  men.  stdwXov  thus  does  not  mean  in 
Homer,  as  in  Pindar,  the  deathless  and  divinely  derived 
part  of  man,tt  but  only  his  phantom  or  image.  The 
phantom  of  -^neas  which  Apollo  creates  to  deceive 
Trojans  and  Greeks,  and  round  which  they  continued 
to  fight  ;$$  the  form  Athene  makes  like  Iphthima,  and 
sends  to  visit  the  dreams  of  Penelope  ;§§  the  semblance 
of  Herakles  which  remains  in  Hades  while  he  himself 
feasts  with  the  immortal  gods||||  are  siidajXa.  The  tcdwXov 
thus  stands  opposed  to  the  real  person ;  is  intangible, 

*  "  II.,"  xxiii.  103,  104.  t  "  Od."  X.  493-495. 

t  «  Od.,"  xi.  476.         §  "  II.,"  xxl  466.        II   "  Od.,"  xi.  29,  49. 
H  "  II.,"  xxiii.  104.  **  "  Od.,"  xi.  476;  xxvi.  14. 

tt  "Frag.  ex.  Threnis,"  ii.  5.  tt  "H-,"  v.  449-451- 

§§  "  Od.,"  iv.  796.  *  nil  "  Od.,"  xi.  602. 

II 


1 6  2  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

impotent — a  shadow  which  can  neither  embrace  nor  be 
embraced.  Odysseus  in  vain  thrice  attempts  to  clasp 
the  shade  of  his  mother,*  and  Agamemnon  tries  but 
fails  to  seize  Odysseus.f  They  are  compared  to  shad- 
ows {axiai^X  or  dreams.§  They  "  squeak  and 
gibber,"||  twitter  like  bats, IF  scream  like  frightened 
birds,**  emit  confused  noises  not  at  all  to  be  compared 
with  human  speech. ft  But  here  Homer  falls  into 
curious  and  instructive  inconsistencies.  The  shades  of 
the  dead  are  not  mere  illusions  ;  are  real  after  their 
kind.  Odysseus  fears  that  Persephone  may  have  sent 
to  him  an  eldujXov  instead  of  his  mother.$$  The  very 
attempt  to  conceive  the  shadow  changed  it  into  a  sub- 
stance. To  attribute  to  it  any  action  whatever  was  to 
attribute  to  it  reality.  And  so  while  Homer  denies 
tppivsq  Oop-oq  /J.i>(><;,  and  xrjp,  to  the  el'dcoXa  xa/x6>TioVj 
he  yet  represents  them  as  self-conscious  and  self-deter- 
mining. They  see  and  fear  the  sword  of  Odysseus.§§ 
They  refuse  to  the  soul  of  the  unburied  Patroklos 
entrance  into  Hades.  ||1|  The  unburied  can  appear  and 
speak  to  the  living,  asleep  or  awake  ;iriF  but  while  the 
buried  cannot  do  so  of  their  own  will,  because  in  Hades, 
they  can  yet  by  drinking  the  blood  shed  at  a  sacrifice 
to  the  dead  enjoy  a  temporary  return  to  consciousness 
and  semi-vitality.  Thus  in  the  Nekyia  of  the  Odyssey, 
the  ghosts  crowd  eagerly  round  the  trench  Odyssus  has 
dug  and  filled  with  the  blood  of  his  sacrifice,***  and  so 

*  "  Od,"  xi.  206-208.  t  "  Od.,"  xi.  393,  394. 

t  "  "  Od,"  X.  495.  §  "  Od.,"  xi.  207,  222. 

II  "II.,"  xxiii.  loi ,  "Od,"  xxiv.  5.        f  "  Od.,"  xxiv.  7,  9. 
**  "  Od.,"  xi.  605.        tt  "  Od.,"  xi.  633.         Jt  "  Od"  xi.  213. 
§§  "Od.."  xi.  251,  232.  III!  "IL,"  xxiii.  72-74. 

HIT  "  II.,"  xxiii.  65-67;  "  Od.,"  xi.  51,  52. 
***  "Od.,"xi.  148,  225-227. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  163 

soon  as  they  taste  it,  can  recognize  and  speak  with  him. 
His  mother  can  describe  her  own  death,  what  happened 
at  Ithaka  after  his  departure,  and  her  dream-like  life  in 
Hades.*  Agamemnon  can  tell  the  story  of  his  murder, 
and  mourn  his  wretched  fate.f  Achilles,  while  lament- 
ing his*  own  miserable  lot,  rejoices  to  hear  of  his  son's 
heroism. I  The  blood  can  thus  give  back  for  the 
moment  consciousness  and  speech  to  the  soul,  probably 
because  the  blood  and  breath  were  considered  as  the 
causes  and  conditions  in  their  union  of  life,  in  their  sep- 
aration of  death. §  But  even  before  drinking  the  blood 
it  could  perceive,  desire,  and  act.  The  Homeric  con- 
ception was  evidently  transitional ;  thought  had  ad- 
vanced beyond  language.  The  soul  had  become,  or 
was  becoming,  to  the  former  a  substance,  while  it  re- 
mained to  the  latter  a  shadow. 

Our  next  question  is  as  to  the  relation  of  the  ^I'Dyji  naX 
eldcoXov  to  the  actual  man.  Whether  did  he  perish  with 
the  body,  or  continue  to  exist  as  soul  ?  The  question 
in  this  form  was  the  product  of  an  age  later  than  the 
Homeric.  To  affirm  that  to  Homer  "  the  I,  the  human 
self-consciousness,  ceased  to  be  at  death,"]]  or  that  to 
him  "  what  continued  to  exist  was  the  personal  element 
of  the  body,"ir  is  to  affirm  on  either  side  too  much.  Now 
the  body  and  now  the  soul  is  described  as  the  person, 

*  "  Od.,"xi.  152-224.  t  "  Od,"  xi.  4015-461. 

}  "  Od.,"  xi.  488-540. 

§  But  see  Nitzch  ("Anmerk.  z.  Odys.,"  iii.  p.  203),  who  main- 
tains that  the  belief  in  the  power  of  blood  to  restore  consciousness 
arose  from  the  custom  of  sacrificing  to  the  dead.  He  seems,  how- 
ever, to  reverse  the  true  order,  and  substitute  cause  for  effect. 

II  Nagelbasch,  "  Hom.  Theol.,"  380. 

H  Welcker,  "  Griechis.  Gotterl.,"  i.  811. 


-1I64  ^^^^  BELIEF  JN  IMMORTALITY. 

but  in  such  cases  poetical  necessity  is  the  grand  arbiter 
of  terms.  To  an  impassioned  Achilles,  flushed  with 
victory  and  gratified  revenge,  a  dead  body  is  in  one  line 
the  actual  Hector,  a  soul  in  another  the  actual  Patrok- 
los.*  The  poet  about  to  sing  the  woes  caused  by  the 
wrath  of  Achilles  leaves  the  heroes  a  prey  to  dogs,  while 
their  souls  go  to  Hades  ;t  but  when  he  paints  his  hero's 
visit  to  HadesJ  personality  is  entirely  detached  from  the 
body,  and  attached  to  the  soul.  Thus,  if  only  death 
was  regarded,  it  seemed  the  cessation  of  existence  ;  if 
the  soul  was  conceived,  it  seemed  the  continuance  of 
the  person.  As  a  matter  of  fact  neither  was  fully  meant. 
The  person  was  to  Homer  neither  the  body  nor  the 
soul,  but  the  living  man.  At  death  the  hero  as  such 
ceased  to  be.  The  body,  the  vehicle  of  the  powers  con- 
stitutive of  the  man,  was  dissolved  ;  the  soul,  its  mere 
shadow,  alone  remained.  But  the  inevitable  tendency 
of  thought  was  to  deny  personality  to  the  one  and  give 
it  to  the  other.  The  tendency  exists  in  Homer,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  spirit  and  design  of  his  poems,  he  tends  to 
conceive  the  soul  as  the  continued  though  attenuated 
person,  but  his  thought,  as  transitional  and  so  far  un- 
conscious, cannot  be  translated  into  the  language  of 
later  metaphysics. 

A  life  after  death  was  thus  in  a  certain  sense  affirmed 
by  Homer.  But  in  what  relation  did  the  life  here  stand 
to  the  life  hereafter  1  The  one  had  no  religious  con- 
nection with  the  other.  Zeus,  the  supreme  god  of  the 
living,  had  no  authority  over  the  dead.§     Death  was 

*  "  II.,"  xxiii.  19-21.  t  "  II.,"  i.  3,  4.  X  "  Od.,"  xi. 

§  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age,"  ii.  210. 
claims  for  Zeus  a  limited  power  over  the  dead ;  but  the  lines  to 
which  he  refers,  "  Od.,"  xi.  300-304,  can  be  interpreted  in  harmony 
with  the  statement  of  the  text 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  165 

departure  from  the  realm  he  ruled.  He  can,  indeed, 
translate  mortals  like  Menelaos  to  the  Elysian  plain,* 
or  raise  others  like  Ganymedes  to  the  society  of  the 
Immortals,!  but  with,  not  without,  the  body — before, 
not  after,  death.  And  like  limitations  bind  the  other 
Olympians.  Athene  alone  seems  an  exception,  as  she 
claims  to  have  saved  Herakles  from  the  Styx  ;%  but 
Herakles  was  a  living,  not  a  dead  man.  Thus  piety 
could  not  lighten,  nor  impiety  deepen,  the  misery  of 
Hades.  Reverence  of  the  gods  was  there  unrewarded  ; 
contempt  of  them  unpunished. 

The  underworld  had,  indeed,  its  own  proper  deities, 
Aides  and  Persephone  ;§  the  former,  the  infernal  or  sub- 
terranean Zeus  ;  the  latter,  not,  as  in  the  later  mytho- 
logy, the  lost  and  lovely  daughter  of  Demeter,  but  the 
veritable  Queen  of  the  Shades.  ||  Teiresias  owes  to  her 
his  seership.lT  She  gathers  and  disperses  the  shades  of 
the  women.**  Odysseus  suspects  she  has  deluded  him 
with  a  phantom  instead  of  his  mother, tt  and  flees  in 
terror  lest  she  send  out  to  him  the  Gorgon's  head.^il: 
The  epithets  applied  to  her,  dhi^,  ayao-q,  i-aivr^,  express 
the  awe  with  which  the  Queen  of  the  Dead  inspired  the 
living.  But  neither  Aides  nor  Persephone  ruled  the 
future  with  any  reference  to  the  piety,  properly  so  called, 
of  the  present.  Religion  was  to  the  Homeric  Greek  pro- 
fitable only  to  the  life  that  now  is.  Sacrifices  persuaded 
the  Olympians  to  friendliness  j  but  Aides,  implacable 

*  "  Od.,"  iv.  562.  t  "  II.,"  XX.  233. 

}  «  II.,"  viii.  362-369.  §  "  IL,"  ix.  457. 

II  Preller,    "Demeter  und  Persephone,"  p.  9;    Mr.  Gladstone, 
«  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age,"  ii.  pp.  218  ff.        If  "  Od.,"  x.  494. 
**  «  Od.,"  xi.  226.  tt  "  Od.,"  xi.  213.  . 

tt"Od.,"xi.634,635. 


1 66  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

and  inexorable,  the  most  hateful  to  mortals  of  all  the 
gods,*  remained  almost  without  worship,!  so  little  rela- 
tion had  he  to  the  present. 

But  the  religious  was  not  to  Homer  the  highest  ele- 
ment. Behind  and  above  Zeus  Molpa  stands  ;  beside 
Aides  and  Persephone  ^Epv^q.  Molpa  embodied  the 
idea  of  an  order,  ^Epvjuq  of  an  authority,  or  moral  law, 
above  every  personal  will  divine  or  human.:):  The  gods 
fear  the  Erinyes,  who  maintain  even  against  the  gods 
the  established  order  of  things. §  They  dwell  in  the 
underworld,  and  so  are  associated  with  the  Chthonian 
deities.  In  the  curse  pronounced  upon  Phoenix  by  his 
father  the  Erinyes  are  invoked,  but  Aides  and  dread 
Persephone  hear  and  fulfil  it.]]  Althea,  in  her  impre- 
cation on  her  son,  calls  upon  the  two  deities,  but  Erinyes, 
who  stalks  in  darkness,  implacable  of  heart,  hears  from 
Erebos.U  The  ethical  idea  of  retribution  stands  thus 
impersonated  in  the  Erinyes  :  the  associates,  perhaps 
rather  Ministers,  of  the  Chthonian  gods  ;  but  is  it  a 
retribution  limited  to  the  present,  or  extending  to  the 
future  ?  Of  the  twelve  places  where  they  are  mentioned 
in  the  Homeric  poems,  ten  quite  certainly  refer  to  the 
present.**  Their  action  or  judgment  is  exhausted  here. 
Of  the  other  two,  one  is  the  poetic  myth  concerning  the 
daughters  of  Pandareos,  carried  off  by  the  Harpies,  and 

*  "Il.,"ix.  158,  159. 

t  Pausanias,  vi.,  xxv.  3  ;  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  Juv.  Mundi,"  pp. 
253  f. 

X  Nagelsbach,  «  Horn.  Theol.,"  pp.  262  £f. ;  Gladstone,  "  Homer 
and  the  Homeric  Age,"  ii.  306  ff.;  "Juv.  Mundi,"  350  ff. 

§  "II.,"  XV.  204;  xix.  418  ;  xxi.  410-414. 

II  "  II.,"  ix.  454-457.  t  "  Il-»"  ix.  565-568. 

**  "  II.,"  ix.,  454,  567 ;  XV.  204  ;  xix.  87,  418 ;  xxi.  412  ;  "  Od.,*' 
ii.  135;  xi.  279;  XV.  234;  xvii.  475. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  167 

given  up  to  be  ministers  to  the  Erinyes.*  But  this  is 
without  reference  to  death  or  the  state  of  the  dead,  and 
so  to  the  retributions  of  a  future  life.  The  other  text 
seems  more  explicit.  Agamemnon,  when  protesting  his 
innocence  as  to  Briseis,  invokes  as  witnesses  "  Zeus, 
highest  and  best  of  the  gods,  Ge,  Helios,  and  Erinyes^ 
who  dwell  beneath  the  earth,  and  punish  men  forsworn."! 
A  similar  text,  in  a  similar  invocation,  appeals  to  the 
infernal  pair  "  who  punish  dead  men  who  break  their 
oaths."1:  Homeric  man  seems  thus  to  have  had  a 
glimpse  of  a  moral  law  operative  against  perjury  alike 
here  and  hereafter,  and  so  associated  its  action  with  the 
infernal  powers.  But  texts  like  the  above  easily  mean 
more  to  us  than  they  did  to  the  early  Greeks.  The 
most  awful  oath  the  gods  could  swear  was  by  the  Styx,§ 
the  symbol  of  death,  even  to  the  Immortals.||  So  man 
in  his  most  solemn  oaths  invoked  the  powers  under 
the  earth,  whose  function  it  was  to  punish  by  death  the 
man  forsworn.  And  this-  is  the  more  notable,  as  in 
Homer's  picture  of  the  underworld  the  Erinyes  have  no 
place.  While  Epicaste  dies,  her  Erinyes  remain  behind 
to  follow  her  husband-son. IT  The  ghostly  dead  cannot 
suffer  such  punishments  as  they  inflict ;  if  any  can,  the 
perjured  alone.  Had  Homer's  idea  of  spirit  been  as 
vivid  and  definite  as  his  idea  of  law,  he  would  have 
placed  the  present  and  the  future  in  more  intimate 
relation  to  each  other.  The  notion  of  spirit  as  such 
was  strangely  foreign  to  him.      His  very  gods  were 

*  «  Od.,"  XX.  78.    t  "111.,"  xix.  258-260.    X  " II.,"  iii.  278-279. 
§  «*I1.,"  xiv.  271 ;  XV.  37,  38.     Hesiod,  "  Theog.,"  775  (Paley's 
ed.) 

II  Nagelsbach,  "  Horn.  Theol.,"  p.  40.  f  "  Od.,"  xi.  279. 


leS  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

material,  and  had  a  material  immortality.*  Their 
relations  to  men,  whether  as  parents  or  protectors,  were 
conceived  physically.  Men  who  boasted  a  divine  descent 
were  divine  only  as  to  the  body  j  their  souls  were  ghostly 
like  other  men's.  The  soul  was  not  to  Homer,  as  to 
Horace,  "  divinae  particula  aurae,"  f  or  as  to  Virgil,  "est 
ollis  ccelestis  origo  seminibus,"  X  but  only  "  tenuis  sine 
corpore  vita,  cava  sub  imagine  formae."  §  Later  the 
spiritual  similarity  of  gods  and  men  was  the  basis  of  the 
faith  in  immortality,  but  without  the  premiss  Homer 
could  not  reach  the  conclusion.  Immortality  was  the 
distinctive  attribute  of  the  gocjs,  communicable  to  a 
living,  but  not  to  a  dead  man.  The  ethical  element, 
without  the  metaphysical,  could  not  connect  the  present 
and  the  future.  The  Erinyes  could  not  follow  a  soul 
which  was  but  a  shadow. 

In  Homer's  notion  of  the  future  state,  as  in  his  con- 
ception of  the  0y/i?,  incompatible  and  transitional  ele- 
ments existed.!  The  only  home  of  the  dead  he  knew 
was  the  House  of  Aides.  Tartaros  was  the  prison  of 
defeated  gods.lF  The  Elysian  plain  the  heaven  of  certain 
translated  mortals."**  But  in  the  realm  of  Aides  dwelt 
the  souls  of  all  the  dead.  It  was  the  shadow  of  the 
upperworld,  as  the  soul  was  the  shadow  of  the  man ; 
had  its  rivers  and  mountains,  meadows  and  flowers,  &c.tt 
It  was  a  region   of  cheerless  gloom,  abhorred  of  the 

*  Nagelsbach,  "  Horn.  Theol.,"  pp.  39  ff.  t  "  Sat.,"  ii.  2,  79. 

X  "  iEneid,"  vi.  730.  §  "^neid,"  vi.  294. 

II  B.  Constant,  "  De  la  Religion,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  277  ff- 
IF  "  II.,"  xiv.  274;  viii.  479  ;  12-16. 
**  "  Od.,"  iv.  560.     Preller,  "  Griechis.  Mythol.,"  i.  507. 
tt  Welcker,  "Griechis.  Gotterl.,"  i.  798  ff,j  Preller,  "Griechis. 
Mythol.,"  i.  501  ff.  ■ , 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  169 

gods.*  It  was  not  a  scene  of  retribution,  but  of  depriva- 
tion— the  ghostly  home  of  ghosts.  In  the  original 
Homeric  conception  pious  and  impious  were  mingled 
together — a  multitude  of  wailing  souls,  whose  life  was 
one  of  unrelieved  misery,  t  The  souls  of  the  dead  stand 
round  Odysseus  wailing,  each  one  tellings  his  sorrows.^ 
His  mother  comes  to  him  lamenting, §  Agamemnon 
"  weeps  shrilly,"  and  sheds  the  big  tear.||  Achilles  ap- 
proaches sorrowing,  and  meets  the  gentle  remonstrance, 
"  Be  not  grieved  at  death,"  with  the  terrible  words,  "  Do 
not,  illustrious  Odysseus,  talk  to  me  about  death.  Rather 
would  I  be  alive  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  and  serve 
for  hire  a  master,  and  a  needy  master  too,  than  be  lord 
of  the  whole  world  of  the  dead."  If 

But  this  primitive  and  purely  negative  conception 
could  not  maintain  itself.  In  the  Homeric  theology 
the  notions  of  merit  and  reward  were  strangely  absent. 
Gods  and  men  stood  too  near  each  other :  the  god 
became  easily  jealous  of  the  prosperous  man.  The 
Erinyes  exhibited  law  on  its  penal  side.  Hence  such 
transitional  elements  as  existed  in  the  conception  of  the 
future  state  were  retributive :  the  tendency  was  not  to 
conceive  the  good  as  rewarded,  but  special  sinners  as 
punished.  In  three  pictures  the  existence  and  growth 
of  this  tendency  are  indicated.  Tityos  lies  stretched 
over  nine  acres,  and  two  vultures  tear  his  liver.**  Tan- 
talos  stands  up  to  the  chin  in  a  lake,  ever  stooping 
to  drink,  while  the  water  ever  escapes  his  lip.ft  Sisyphos 
ever  rolls  his  stone  to  the  hill-top  only  to  see  it  evermore 

*  "II.,"  XX.  65.  t  "  Od.,"  xi.  605. 

X  "  Od.,"  xi.  541,  542.  §  "  Od.,'»  xi.  154. 

II  "Od.,"  xi.  391.  1"  "  Od.,"  xi.  472,  486-491. 

**■  «  Od.,"  xi.  576-581.  tt  "  Od.,"  xi.  582-592. 


170  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

return.*  In  these  almost  certainly  post-Homeric 
pictures,  the  idea  of  retribution  stands  embodied-t  In 
Tityos,  lust  is  punished  in  its  peculiar  seat ;  in  Tantalos, 
gluttony;  in  Sisyphos,  the  speculative  curiosity  that, 
seeks  to  transcend  the  limits  appointed  to  human 
reason. $  Besides  these  stands  another  and  no  less 
significant  set  of  pictures.  Minos,  the  phantom  judge 
of  the  phantom  dead,  Orion,  the  phantom  hunter,  and 
Herakles,  whose  shadow  lives  below  while  he  himself 
feasts  above. §  These  mark  the  progress  towards  a 
more  life-like  and  less  miserable  conception  of  the 
future.  The  souls  are  becoming  more  substantive ; 
their  home,  their  sufferings,  and  their  acts  more  real. 

Such,  then,  was  the  Homeric  belief  in  the  future  life 
of  the  soul,  a  faltering,  inconsistent,  indistinct,  yet 
veracious  utterance  of  that  great  human  instinct  which 
demands  for  man  continued  existence.  It  stood  in  no 
relation  to  the  idea  of  God,  and  so  had  no  ground  in 
reason ;  had  no  connection  with  religion,  and  so  could 
address  no  appeal  to  hope  or  fear.  Because  thus  isolated, 

*  "  Od.,"  xi.  593-600. 

t  Into  the  qucesiio  vexatio  of  the  interpolations  in  the  eleventh 
Odyssey  it  is,  of  course,  not  possible  to  enter  here.  The  entire 
passage,  565-627,  seems  to  me  for  many  reasons  certainly  spurious, 
and  marks,  perhaps,  two  successive  stages  in  the  development  of 
the  belief, — the  lines  567-575  and  601-626,  the  first  stage,  in  which 
the  soul  and  the  underworld  become  less  shadowy,  more  substan- 
tial ;  but  the  lines  576-600,  the  second  stage,  in  which  the  ethical 
and  retributive  idea  receives  expression.  But  see  Nitzsch,  "An- 
merlc  z.  Odys.,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  304  ff. ;  K.  O.  Muller's  "  Hist,  of  the 
Lit.  of  Anc.  Greece,"  i.  81.  Cf.  on  the  other  side.  Colonel  Mure, 
"Hist.  Lang,  and  Lit.  of  Anc.  Gr.,"  ii.  185  ff. 

X  See  the  elaborate  discussion  in  Nitzsch,  iii.  220  ff.  Cf.  Virgil, 
"yEneid,"  vi.  595-600;  Lucretius,  iii.  980-997  (Monro's  ed.). 

§  -Od.,"xi.  568-575,601-626. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE. 


171 


the  belief  was  indefinite,  feeble,  inconsistent — an  uttered 
longing  which  had  sought  but  not  found  stable  footing. 
Apotheosis  in  its  proper  sense  was  unknown  to  Homer,* 
and  was  never  as  it  existed  in  Greece  promotive  of  the 
belief  in  Immortality.  The  exceptionality  of  the  boon 
it  gave  only  helped  to  deepen  the  dreariness  of  the 
common  lot.  Translation,!  too,  was  so  rare  and  so 
conditioned  as  only  to  tantalize  ordinary  mortals  with 
examples  of  unattainable  bliss.  The  hero  and  the 
coward,  the  wise  man  and  the  fool,  alike  died,  became 
shadows,  and  lived  lives  of  gloomy  misery  in  Hades. 
Hence  the  despair  that  sits  at  the  heart  of  Homeric  man 
when  he  becomes  conscious  of  the  lot  appointed  him  by 
a  mocking  and  ironical  destiny.^  Men  are  ^tiloi  or 
ol^vpih  ^poToi,  are  short-lived, §  and  each  generation 
like  the  leaves  of  spring,  which  perish  before  the  winds 
of  autumn.ll  In  the  eye  of  Zeus  there  is  no  more 
wretched  being  than  man  of  all  that  live  and  move  upon 
the  earth.H  Bright  and  beautiful  as  was  the  life  of  the 
Homeric  Greeks  upon  the  surface,  the  agony  was  at  its 
heart  which  was  soon  to  be  uttered  in  perhaps  the  most 
memorable  of  the  many  axioms  of  despair — "  The  best 
of  all  things  to  mortals  is  not  to  be  born  and  see  the 
rays  of  the  bright  sun,  but  when  born  to  die  as  soon  as 
possible  and  lie  buried  under  a  load  of  earth. "*"* 

*  Nitzsch,  "  Anmerk.  z.   Odys.,"  iii.  182,  340  ff.     On  the  other 
side,  Colonel  Mure,  "Crit.  Hist.,"  i.  500,  501. 

t  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age,"  ii.  313  f. 

X  "II.,"  xxiv.  521   ff.     Cf.  Nagelsbach,   '*  Horn.  Theol.,"  371 
Mr.  Gladstone,  "  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age,"  ii.  393. 

§  "  Od.,"  xix.  328.  II  "  II.,"  vi.  146-149. 

t  "  II.,"  xvii.  446.     Cf.  "  Od.,"  xviii.  130. 

**  **  Theognis,"  425.     Cf.  the  story  of  the  captive  Silenus,  Plu 
tarch,  "Consolatio  ad  Apollonium,"  0pp.  Moral.  (Wyttenb.  ed.), 


172  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY, 


HI.   HESIOD. 

The  Hesiodic  poems  are  more  specificially  religious 
than  the  Homeric,  pervaded  by  a  humaner  and  more 
ethical  spirit.  Had  the  belief  in  immortality  then 
existed  in  Greece,  it  would,  as  pregnant  with  the 
promise  of  a  golden  future,  have  been  peculiarly 
attractive  to  a  poet  like  Hesiod,  with  his  intense  love 
of  the  traditional  happier  past,  and  his  almost  morbid 
sense  of  the  wrongs  and  miseries  of  the  present.  The 
men  of  the  golden  age  had  indeed  died  as  if  falling  into 
a  gentle  sleep,  and  had  become  by  the  will  of  God  good 
spirits,  guardians  of  mortal  men.$  The  silver  race,  less 
pious  than  the  golden,  had  been  engulfed  in  the  earth, 
and  become  the  Blest  of  the  underworld.*  The  brazen 
race,  terrible  as  they  were,  black  Death  had  seized,  and, 
inglorious,  they  had  descended  to  the  dreary  house  of 
chilly  Aides.f  The  men  of  the  heroic  age  had  either 
died  before  seven-gated  Thebes,  or  in  the  war  for  fair- 
headed  Helen,  or  been  translated  to  the  Isles  of  the 
Blest,  where  they  lived,  happy  and  careless,  in  a  land 
which  thrice  a  year  bore  fruit  sweet  as  honey.J  But 
no  hope  of  an  Elysium  cheered  the  men  of  the  fifth,  the 


vol.  i.  pp.  483  f.;  Cicero,  "Tusc,"  i.  48.  Also  Sophokles,  "  Oid. 
Kol.,"  1225,  "Oid.  Tyr.,"  1528-1530. 

X  Resold,  "  Opp.  et  Di.,"  1 16-123  (Paley's  ed.). 

*  Hesiod,  "  Opp.  et  Di.,"  140-143.  t  lb.,  153-155. 

X  lb.,  161-173.  I  adopt  Welcker's  ("Kleine  Schriften,"  i.  23) 
interpretation  of  166,  167,  which  is  also  Grote's  ("  History,"  i.  65), 
in  preference  to  Heyne's,  which  makes  all  the  heroes  be  translated 
to  the  Isles  of  the  Blest. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  173 

poet's  own  age  *  To  them  death  was  a  dread  god, 
inexorable,  iron  of  heart,  a  ruthless  soul  of  brass  in  his 
breast,  hostile  even  to  the  immortal  gods.f  Aides,  too, 
has  a  relentless  heart,^:  and  at  death  souls  descend  to 
his  dark  and  cheerless  domain.  § 

Hesiod,  then,  did  little  to  modify  or  improve  our  be- 
lief. Yet  there  are  signs  of  progress.  The  notion  of 
spirit  is  firmer  and  clearer  than  in  Homer.  It  can  exist 
without  body,  can  live  as  a  daemon  upon  or  under  the 
earth.  The  spiritual  element  in  man  approximates  to 
the  spiritual  in  God.  The  heroes  are  demigods.  The 
selecter  spirits  are  immortal.  ||  Ethical  notions,  too, 
are  developed.  Each  age  is  rewarded  according  to  its 
works.  The  belief  is  nascent.  The  first  green  shoots 
appear. 

IV.    THE   MYSTERIES. 

In  the  ghostly  and  gloomy  future  of^  the  popular  and 
epical  faith  the  Greeks  could  not  permanently  believe. 
The  wail  of  Achilles,  the  tears  of  Agamemnon,  the  con- 
temptuous pity  of  Zeus,  the  plaintive  sigh  of  Hesiod 
over  his  birth  in  the  age  of  mortal  men,1I  but  give  voice 
to  the  corrosive  misery  that  lay  at  the  heart  of  Greece. 
Every  step  forward  taken  by  the  Greek  mind  made 
higher  notions  of  the  future  destiny  of  man  the  more 
necessary.     With  the  growth  of  civilization  nationality 

*  Hesiod,  "  0pp.  et  Di,"  174-181.        t  "  Theog.,"  759-766. 

X  -  lb,"  455>  456.  §  "  Scut.  Her.,"  151,  254. 

II  C£.  Tacitus,  "  Agricola,"  46  :  "  Si  quis  piorum  manibus  locus; 
si,  ut  sapientibus  placet,  non  cum  corpore  exstinguuntur  magnae 
animae  "  Minds  moving  upwards  to  faith,  or  downwards  to  doubt, 
often  strangely  meet  on  the  road. 

\  "  Opp.  et  Di.,"  175. 


174 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


had  waned  ;  individuality  had  waxed.  While  pictures 
of  a  happier  past  had  satisfied  the  imaginative  age,  no- 
thing but  belief  in  a  conscious  future  could  satisfy  the 
reflective,  and  save  the  Greek  mind  from  the  epicurean 
despair  that  made  man  festive  in  life,  because  in  death 
like  a  voiceless  stone.*  Had  religion  developed  with 
mind,  the  belief  would  have  risen  out  of  their  sympa- 
thetic and  concurrent  inter-action ;  but  as  the  religion 
had  crystallized  into  a  mythology  and  worship  which 
regarded  the  present  alone,  it  had  as  to  the  future  neither 
promise  to  utter  nor  truth  to  reveal.  Hero-worship,  the 
natural  product  of  a  heroic  land  like  Greece,  had  led  to 
Apotheosis.  Elect  men  had  been  deified,  and  so  im- 
mortalized. But  this,  while  helping  to  naturalize  the 
thought  of  immortality,  did  not  generalize  it  into  a  be- 
lief. Only  the  rarest  spirits  could  be  raised  to  the  circle 
of  the  immortal  gods.  Their  reward  could  not  become 
the  common  inheritance  of  man.  But  the  Greek  mind, 
determined  partly  by  its  own  instincts  and  aspirations 
interpreting  the  nature  within  and  without  man,  and 
partly  by  foreign  influences  stimulating  and  supplement- 
ing native  thought,  found  out  a  way  to  the  faith  that  it 
craved.  A  new  religion  was  developed,  not  as  antago- 
nistic, but  only  as  supplementary,  to  the  old.  A  Chtho- 
nian  court  was  constructed  over  against  the  Olympian ; 
and  while  from  the  latter  the  Greek  by  public  worship 
craved  present  prosperity,  by  secret  he  craved  from  the 
former  future  happiness.  Of  the  mysteries  thus  formed, 
the  Eleusinian  are  the  product  of  the  native  Greek  mind, 
the  Orphic-Dionysian  the  fruit  of  foreign  influence. 

*  "  Theognis,"  567. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  175' 


I.    THE   ELEUSINIAN    MYSTERIES. 

The  worship  of  Father-Heaven  had  developed  into 
the  Olympian  system,  of  Mother-Earth  into  the  Chth- 
onian.  The  gods  of  the  first  were  the  products  of  the 
creative  and  combining  imagination,  those  of  the  second 
of  the  intuitive  and  reflective  reason.  To  the  mythical 
faculty  Heaven  was  the  symbol  of  the  active  and  gen- 
erative forces,  earth  of  the  passive  and  created.  The 
one  was  perennial,  unchanging,  present ;  the  other  sub- 
ject to  ceaseless  change,  the  scene  of  growth  and  decay, 
birth  and  death.  Demeter,  Aides,  and  Persephone 
were  not  originally  gods  of  the  underworld,  but  of  the 
dying  and  reviving  earth.*  Their  earliest  worship  had 
been  festivals  at  seed-time  and  harvest.  The  earth-mother 
had  mourned  when  the  fruits  and  flowers  she  loved  died, 
rejoiced  when  they  revived.  Aides  had  borne  away 
from  the  face  of  earth  and  the  light  of  heaven  the 
daughter  Demeter  loved,  but  only  to  restore  her  when 
the  Sun  bade  Spring  return.  Life  in  man  and  nature 
was  to  the  early  Greek  allied,  akin.  Earth  was  to  him 
a  mirror — a  hieroglyph  into  which  he  explained  himself. 
So  the  God  that  ruled  the  growth  and  decay  of  earth 
ruled  the  coming  and  going  of  man,  determined  his 
future  state.  In  his  brilliant  and  heroic  youth  the 
bright  gods  of  Olympos  had  charmed  and  satisfied  the 
Greek  :  in  his  sadder  and  more  reflective  manhood  the 
stern  deities  of  the  underworld  occupied  his  thought. 
His  love  of  those  he  had  embodied  in  epic  mythology 

*  Welcker,  "  Griechis.  Gotterl.,"  i.  385  ff. ;  392  £f.      Preller, 
**  Griechis.  Mythol.,"  i.  464  ff. 


176  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

and  worship,  his  awe  of  these  in  mystic  sacrifice  and 
ablution.* 

This  new  faith  and  worship  finds  its  earliest  embodi- 
ment in  the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter.f  The  transi- 
tion from  the  old  earth- worship  to  a  worship  which 
gives  a  better  hope  in  death,  is  just  being  accomplished. 
The  deities  which  presided  over  growth  and  decay  above 
now  preside  over  the  life  below.  Aides  is  no  longer  the 
shadowy  king  of  the  Shades  known  to  Homer,  but  own 
brother  of  Zeus,$  the  all-receiver,§  the  veritable  king  of 
the  dead. II  Worship  of  the  infernal  deities  is  necessary 
to  future  happiness.  Persephone,  as  wife  of  Aides, 
shall  be  mistress  of  all,  and  enjoy  the  greatest  honor 
among  the  immortals.H  Vengeance  shall  follow  those 
who  do  not  propitiate  her  heart  by  sacrifices.**  He  of 
mortal  men  who  beholds  the  mystic  rites  is  blest :  he 
who  is  uninitiated  does  not  participate  in  felicity,  has  a 
very  different  lot  in  the  murky  kingdom  of  death.tt  And 
the  mysteries,  which  thus  supplied  a  religion  for  the 
next  world,  became  dear  to  the  heart  of  Greece.     The 


*  The  controversy  as  to  whether  there  was  any  dogmatic  teach- 
ing connected  with  the  Mysteries,  and  if  so,  what  may  be  regarded 
as  at  an  end.  The  public  and  secret  worship  of  Greece  were  in 
this  respect  very  much  on  a  level.  Both  were  spectacular,  neither 
doctrinal  in  almost  any  degree  whatever.  Of  course,  under  the 
ceremonies  and  acts  of  worship,  certain  distinct  enough  concep- 
tions lay,  and  it  is  with  these  alone  that  we  are  now  concerned. 

t  See  J.  H.  Voss'  *'  Hymne  an  Demeter,"  vrith  an  excellent 
translation  and  notes ;  or  the  Hymn  as  given  in  Baumeister's 
«  Hymni  Homerici "  ( i860). 

}  Hymn  80,  365.  §  lb.,  9,  17.  |I  lb.,  31,  84. 

t  lb.,  364.  **  lb.  369. 

tt  Hymn  480-483.  See  Baumeister's  note,  "  Hymni  Horn.,"  p 
333  ;  also  Voss,  142  f. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  177 

Chthonian  deities  rivalled  the  Olympian.  Demeter  and 
Persephone  were  goddesses  loved  and  revered,  holy  and 
august,  the  most  sacred  names  by  which  men  could 
swear.*  Pindar  sang  that  the  man  who  had  prior  to 
death  seen  the  mysteries  was  happy,  knew  the  end  of 
life  and  its  god-given  beginning.f  Sophokles  pro- 
nounced the  initiated  thrice  happy  :  to  them  alone  was 
there  life  in  Hades ;  to  others  evil.t  Euripides  makes 
Herakles  say  on  his  return  from  the  underworld  that  he 
has  succeeded  in  his  struggle  with  Kerberos,  because 
he  had  seen  the  mystic  orgies.§  The  initiated  sing  in 
Aristophanes,  "To  us  alone  shines  the  glad  sunlight 
there."  |j  Isocrates  praises  Demeter  because  of  her  two 
gifts,  the  fruits  of  the  field  and  the  mysteries,  those  who 
participate  in  the  latter  having  sweeter  hopes  for  the 
end  of  life  and  for  all  eternity.lF  Diodorus  says  that 
the  gods  grant  through  initiation  an  eternal  life,  spent 
in  pleasant  devotion.**'  Cicero  says  these  Attic  mys- 
teries have  taught  men  not  only  to  live  cheerfully,  but 
also  to  die  with  a  better  hope.tt  Krinagoras  sends  men 
to  Athens  to  see  the  solemnities  of  Demeter,  that  they 
may  live  without  care  and  die  with  a  lighter  heart.  XX 

*  Welcker,  "  Griechis.  Gotterl.,"  ii.  532  f . ;  Grote's  "  History  of 
Greece."  i.  37-44. 

t  "  Frag.,"  xcvi.,  vol.  iii.,  pt.  i.,  128  (Heyne's  ed.,  1798). 

t  Plutarch,  " De  Aud.  Poetis,"  p.  27  :  "Frag.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  244; 
Brunkii  Sophokles.  §  "  Here,  fur.,  612. 

II  "  Ranae,"  455.     Cf.  also  324  ff.  (Bekker'&ed.). 

t  "  Paneg.,  vi.  59.  **  "  Exerc.  Vatic.  Mail  Coll.,"  ii.  8. 

tt  "  Legg.,"  ii.  14.    Cf.  "  Ver.,"  v.  72. 

tt  Epp.  XXX.  The  varied  and  numerous  allusions  in  Greek  and 
Latin  writers  to  the  better  hope  in  death  derived  from  the  Mys- 
teries, can  neither  be  cited  nor  referred  to  in  a  short  essay  on  a 
great  subject.  But  see  the  scholarly  discussions  in  Lobeck,  "  Agla- 
ophamus,"  pp.  69  ff.;  Welcker,  "Griechis.  Gotterl.," ii.  pp.  511  ff.; 

12 


1^8  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY, 

The  worship  of  the  Chthonian  deities  thus  furnished 
a  religious  basis  to  the  belief  in  a  future  life.  While 
prayer  and  sacrifice  implored  from  Zeus  a  happy  life 
here,  the  rnystic  rites  implored  from  Aides  a  happy  life 
hereafter.  The  initiated  were  to  dwell  with  the  gods  ; 
the  uninitiated  to  live  in  slime,  or  bear  water  in  a  sieve.* 
The  sound  of  the  flute,  sunlight  beautiful  as  above, 
myrtle-groves,  happy  bands  of  men  and  women,  delight- 
ed the  initiated  below.f  Death  thus  became  the  en- 
trance on  divine  honors.  $  The  dead  were  the  blessed  ; 
the  happy,  the  godlike.  §  Death  ceased  to  be  a  descent 
into  Hades,  and  became  a  departure  into  the  blessed. 
Nor  were  the  future  rewards  independent  of  ethical  con- 
ditions. The  mysteries  known  to  the  Christian  fathers 
had  degenerated, — shared  in  the  corruption  that  had 
smitten  the  whole  body  of  paganism.  But  at  first  initia- 
tion had  bound  to  moral  purity.  To  individuals,  indeed, 
it  became  a  substitute  for  virtue, |i  and  an  old  man, 
haunted  as  Plato  describes  him  by  the  fear  of  the  death 
he  had  once  mocked,ir  might  wish,  like  the  Trygaios  of 
Aristophanes,  to  buy  a  little  pig  and  get  initiated  before 

Preller,  Art.,  "  Eleusina,"  in  Pauly's  "  Encyclop. ; "  Creuzer's 
**  Symbolik  und  Mythol.,"  iv.  pp.  227  ff.  Of  course,  Creuzer's 
peculiar  theory  of  esoteric  doctrines  is  a  pure  imagination.  No 
such  doctrines  are  needed  to  explain  the  better  hope  created  by  the 
Mysteries  :  worship  of  the  Chthonian  deities  was  enough. 

*  Plato,  " Phsd.,". i.  69  (Steph.);  II.,  iii.  28  (Bek.).  Cf.  "Re- 
pub.,"  II.,  ii.  363  ;  "  Gorgias,"  i.  493  ;  see  notes  in  Bekker. 

t  Aristophanes,  "  Ranae,"  154-157  (Bekker). 

X  Scholion  on  Ranae,"  158. 

§  Plato,  "  Legg.,"  bk.  xii.,  vol.  ii.  p.  947;  ^schylos,  "  Pers.,"  63 
f.  (Paley.) 

II  Plato,  "  Repub.,"  bk.  ii.,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  364-366. 

t  lb.,  bk.  i.,vol.  ii.  330. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  179 

he  died  f  but  to  the  representative  Greek  thinkers,  it 
stood  connected  with  piety  and  righteousness  and  im- 
provement of  Hfe.f  The  mysteries  had  helped  to  create 
and  consecrate  the  noblest  hope  that  can  gladden  the 
heart  of  man,  and  only  in  the  most  ignoble  minds  were 
made  at  once  to  pander  to  vice  and  promise  future 
felicity. $  In  general  the  faith  they  both  embodied  and 
evolved  saved  the  heart  of  Greece  from  despair,  and  in- 
spired some  of  its  noblest  spirits  to  produce  works 
immortal  as  the  Odes  of  Pindar  or  the  Philosophy  of 
Plato. 

2.    THE   ORPHICI. 

The  Greeks,  accustomed  to  a  religion  defective  and 
cheerless  in  its  eschatology,  became  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury B.C.  acquainted  with  religions.  Eastern  and  Egyptian, 
whose  eschatology  was  peculiarly  elaborate  and  full.§ 
The  Greek  genius,  always  receptive  and  susceptible, 
was  just  then,  as  the  budding  mysteries  of  Eleusis 
witness,  sensitively  alive  to  the  action  on  this  point  of 
foreign  influence.  The  result  was  an  extraordinary 
religious  development ;  the  rise,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the 
Dionysian  worship  and  mythology,  on  the  other,  of  the 

*  Pax.  370,  371. 

t  Isocrates,  "  Symmach.,"  xii.;  cf.  "  Paneg.,"  vi. ;  Philem., 
"  Frag.'"  xc. ;  Aristoph.,  "  Ranae,"  457-460 ;  Epictetus,  "  Diss.," 
iii.  21,  15. 

X  Ut  supra  (II).  This  abuse  of  the  Mysteries  is  well  rebuked  in 
the  characteristic  story  of  Diogenes  the  cynic  in  "Diog.  L.,"  vi. 
39  :  "It  were  laughable  were  Agesilaos  and  Epaminondas  to  lie 
in  mud,  while  worthless  fellows,  because  initiated,  should  dwell  in 
the  Isles  of  the  Blest." 

§  As  to  the  time  of  the  rise  of  the  Orphic  sects,  see  Lobeck, 
"  Aglaophamus,"  pp.  255  ff.;  Brandis,  "  Geschich.  der  Griechis.- 
Rom.  Philos.,"  i.  53  ff.;  Grote's  «  Hist,  of  Greece,"  i.  28  £f. 


1 8o  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY, 

Orphic  Theosophy.  The  former  increased  the  tendency 
to  establish  a  secret  eschatological  rehgion,*  the  latter 
helped  to  originate  the  speculative  and  theosophic 
thought  of  Greece.t     It  alone  can  be  noticed  here. 

The  Orphic  Theology,  so  far  as  now  decipherable, 
was  an  amalgam,  with  specific  Greek  modifications,  of 
Oriental  and  Egyptian  elements.  Speculative  principles, 
clothed  in  mythical  forms,  partly  Grecian,  partly  foreign, 
were  prefixed  and  appended  to  the  native  mythology, 
and  the  whole  made  to  embody  a  crude  but  elaborate 
Pantheism.  The  primordial  principle  was  Chronos,1: 
which  generated  chaos  and  ether, §  by  whom  was  pro- 
duced a  silver  egg.  ||  From  this  ^gg  sprang  Phanes,ir 
a  being  who  bore  in  himself  the  seed  of  the  gods,** 
generated  night,tt  and  formed  the  Kosmos.tt  Night 
bore  to  him  Uranos  and  Gaea.§§  The  origin  and  suc- 
cession of  the  other  gods  is  then  described  very  much 
as  in  the  traditional  mythology.  ||  ||  Zeus,  and  his 
brothers  are  born  of  Kronos  and  Rhea.lTH  Zeus,  nursed 
by  Eide  and  Adrasteia  in  the  cave  of  Night,***  dethrones 
Kronos,  swallows  and  absorbs  into  himself  the  whole 
existing  system  of  things,ttt  and  then  generates  a  new 
one  framed  according  to  his  own  ideas.Wi  The 
Universe,  all  things  and  beings,  have  thus  issued  from 
Zeus.  And  so  Zeus  is  all  things,  first  and  last,  head 
and  middle,  foundation   of  the   earth   and  the  starry 


*  Preller,  "  Griechis.  Mythol.,"  i.  436. 

t  Zeller,  "  Philos.  der  Griechen,"  i.  47. 

}  Lobeck,  "  Aglaoph.,"  pp.  470-472.  §  lb.,  422!. 

II  lb.,  474-477.  If  lb.,  478  **  lb.,  486. 

tt  lb.,  493-  XX  lb.,  496.  §§  lb.,  499- 

Ilii  lb.,  501.  11  lb.,  514.  ***  lb.,  517. 

ttt  lb.,  519.  XXX  lb.,  526-534. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE. 


I8l 


heavens,  male  and  female,  the  breath  of  all  beings,  the 
heat  of  the  fire,  the  source  of  the  sea,  the  sun,  the 
moon,  the  Being  who  is  all  things,  and  in  whom  all 
beings  live.*  Zeus  is  thus  transformed  from  the  King 
of  Olympos  into  the  generative  principle  of  the  universe, 
and,  as  the  generator  contains  the  generated,  to  the 
universe  as  well.  This  Orphic  Pantheism  is  thus,  in 
many  things,  curiously  alien  to  the  conceptions  of 
religion  and  man  hitherto  entertained  in  Greece. 

A  crude  Pantheism  always  involves  metempsychosis. 
Creation  is  impossible :  new  forms  of  being  may  arise, 
but  being  itself  remains  the  same.  As  to  man,  he  may 
be  conceived  either  as  a  transient  individualization  of 
the  one  substance,  or  as  an  embodiment  of  an  individ- 
ualized principle,  which,  emanating  at  first  from  the 
One,  must,  before  returning  into  it,  describe  a  given 
cycle  of  appearances.  The  latter  was  the  Orphic  con- 
ception. The  spirit,  separated  from  the  whole  and  in- 
dividualizedjt  had  the  cycle  of  necessity,  y.uxloq  avayzTjcr, 
or  of  birth,  yv^i(Tzu}c^  to  describe. $  Man  was  still  mov- 
ing in  the  cycle,  often  returning  to  the  same  point, 
where  the  old  relations  returned  exactly  as  before. 
The  past  life  determined  the  present,  the  present  the 
future.  The  body  was  a  prison  in  which  the  soul  was 
confined  because  of  past   sins.§      At   death   the  soul 

*  See  the  Orphic  Fragments  in  Lobeck,  "  Aglaoph.,*'  519- 
525,  Fragm.  vi.,  Hermann's  "  Orphica,"  pp.  456-463.  Also  the 
excellent  expositions  of  the  Orphic  Theology  in  Brandis,  "Ges- 
chich.  d.  Gr.-Rom.  Philos.,"  i.  59-64 ;  Nagelsbach,  "  Nach-Hom. 
Theol.,"  401-404  ;  Grote,  "  Hist,  of  Greece,"  i.  17-19. 

t  Aristotle,  "De  Anim.,"  i.  5;  Lobeck,  "  Aglaoph.,"  755  £f. 

X  lb.,  797  ff.;  Herodotus,  ii.  123^ 

§  Plato,  "  Kratylos,"  p.  400 ;  Philolaus,  in  Clem.  Alex.  "  Strom.,* 
bk.  iii.,  c.  iii.,  p.  433- 


1 8  2  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

entered  Hades,  to  be  punished  or  rewarded  as  it  de- 
served, and  returned  again  to  earth.*  Ablutions  and 
rites  were  instituted  to  purify  the  soul  and  secure  it  a 
better  lot  hereafter.f  And  so  the  Orphic  Theosophy 
led,  partly,  to  the  development  and  extension  and, 
partly,  to  the  perversion  of  the  mysteries. t  The  first, 
because  it  greatly  helped  to  awaken  the  Greek  mind  to 
a  consciousness  of  its  own  immortality;  the  second, 
because  it  contributed  to  give  an  alien  and  artificial 
meaning  to  what  had  been  a  worship  expressive  of  the 
natural  religious  ideas  and  instincts  of  the  people. 

In  the  Orphic  Theology  the  belief  in  immortality 
enters  upon  a  new  and  important  phase  of  its  develop- 
ment in  Greece,  begins  to  seek  a  basis  scientific  while 
religious.  It  enters  into  relation  with  the  idea  of  God ; 
stands  related  to  it,  indeed,  as  a  mere  element  or  im- 
plicate. The  soul  is  to  man  what  God  is  to  the  world, 
the  vital  and  permanent  and  active  element.  Psycho- 
logy is  no  longer  seated  in  the  body,  but  in  the  soul. 
Death  destroys  nothing  but  its  prison.  Yet,  while  the 
notion  of  continued  being  is  seized,  that  of  personal  is 
lost.  The  soul  is  no  longer  an  ecdwXov,  but  man  is  no 
longer  an  individual — only  an  emanation  from  a  deified 
universe,  revolving  in  a  cycle  of  necessity.  The  Greek 
mind  has  still  a  long  way  to  travel  before  it  can  reach 
the  belief  in  a  positive  personal  immortality. 

V.  THE   PRE-SOKRATIC   PHILOSOPHY. 

As  the  philosophy  did  not  grow  up  within  the  religion 
of  Greece,  its  earliest  forms  of  thought  and  expression 

*  «  Phaedo,"  p.  70. 

t  Lobeck,  "  Aglaoph.,"  806-810.  t  lb.  810  £f. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  183 

were  not  religious.  The  national  faith  was  mythical, 
not  reflective  or  doctrinal,  and  so  its  very  nature  made 
it  unfit  to  be  either  the  object  or  vehicle  of  philosophic 
thought.  While,  then,  philosophy  starts  from  a  point 
which  seems  very  remote  from  our  belief,  it  yet  inevit- 
ably tends  towards  it. 


I.  THE    EARLIER   lONIANS. 

Thales  depersonalized  the  ancient  Okeanos — sought 
in  water  the  source  of  life.*  As  the  cause  was  material, 
so  was  the  effect.  Soul  was  not  peculiar  to  man,t  but 
the  synonyme  of  life,  or  the  cause  of  motion,  and  so  was 
mixed  with  all  things,^  existed  in  the  magnet, §  or  the 
amber.ll  In  a  system  where  soul  was  so  crudely  con- 
ceived, its  immortality  could  have  neither  place  nor 
meaning. IT  Anaximander  and  Anaximenes  alike  defined 
the  soul  as  "  air-like,"*"*  but  to  both  it  was  material,  as 
was  the  unlimited  {rb  ar.£ip(y^\  the  self-moved  beginning 
of  the  one,  and  the  air,  the  creative  force  of  the  other.* 
Diogenes  of  Apollonia  held  a  sort  of  dualism,  a  univ^er- 
sal  matter  and  an  intelligent  Being,  its  organizer.  But 
this  Being  he  identified  with  the  air  which  pervaded  all 
things,  which  animals  and  men  breathed,  and  became, 
according  to  the  quality  of  the  air  they  inhaled,  intelli- 

*  Aristotle,  "Metaph.,"  A,  3;"DeCoelo,"  ii.  13. 

t  "  Diog.  L.,"  i.  27.  X  Arist.,  «  De  Anim.,"  i.  5. 

§  Ib.,i.2.  II  "Diog.  L.,"i.  24. 

1  Though  Choirilos,  in  "  Diog.  L.,"  i.  24,  makes  him  the  first 
who  taught  it. 

**  Theodoret,  Scrm.v.  p.  72. 

*  See  the  texts  in  Ritter  and  Preller's  "  Historia  Philosophiae," 
§§  17-27- 


184  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

gent  and  conscious.*  This,  however,  still  left  creative 
and  created  intelligence  alike  material  and  impersonal. 
And  so  to  those  early  lonians  man  was  but  a  physical 
being,  with  no  existence  apart  from  the  body.  But  their 
attempts  to  refine  and  unify  the  primal  cause,  while  ap- 
parently inimical  to  our  belief,  were,  in  truth,  rude  and 
unconscious  struggles  towards  it. 


2.  PYTHAGORAS  AND  THE  PYTHAGOREANS. 

This  School  introduced  into  Greek  Philosophy  a  new 
and  more  spiritual  class  of  conceptions.  The  Society 
Pythagoras  founded,  the  philosophy  that  bears  his  name, 
the  myths  that,  like  parasites,  have  so  overgrown  as 
almost  to  conceal  his  actual  personality,  bear  witness  to 
his  profoundly  religious  spirit.!  His  significance  for 
Greece  was  threefold,  scientific,  religious,  political.  His 
Society  was  the  first  that  it  might  be  the  second,  and 
because  the  second  the  third.  Of  the  doctrine  attributed 
to  him,  the  one  that  can  best  be  authenticated,  metemp- 
sychosis, he  almost  certainly  derived  from  the  Orphic 
schools.  $  The  age  in  which  he  lived,  the  constitution 
of  his  Society,  the  doctrines  it  professed,  the  ritual  it 
observed,  the  traditions  and  theories  associated  with  his 
name,  all  tend  to  show  that  he  had  intimate  relations 
with  the  theosophic  sects  that  had  grown  up  in  and 
round  the  mysteries.  Pythagoras  may  thus  be  con- 
sidered the  inheritor  and  transmitter  of  the  more  spirit- 
ual results  of  the  old  Greek  religion.     Man  meant  more 

*  Zeller,  "  Philos.  d.  Griechen,"  i.  191  ff. 

t  Zeller,  "  Pythagoras  und  die  Pythagorassage,"  Vortrage,  p.  351 

X  Herod.,  ii.  81,  cf.  123. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  185 

to  him  than  to  the  early  lonians.  His  conception  of 
nature  was  more  spiritual.  Their  philosophy  was  but 
the  national  mythology  naturalized  ;  but  his  was,  on  its 
religious  side,  the  Orphic  theosophy  philosophized.  It 
is  difficult,  perhaps  impossible,  to  ascertain  what  Pythag- 
oras taught  concerning  the  nature  of  the  soul,  whether 
a  harmony,*  a  self  determining  number, f  &c.  More  to 
the  purpose  is  it  to  notice  that  the  soul  must  have  been 
to  him  an  entity,  not  a  mere  attribute  ;  that  he  distin- 
guished in  it  the  higher  and  lower  faculties,  the  rational 
and  irrational, $  or  mind  (^^pivsq),  reason  (>oi5?),  and  pas- 
sion (Ouij.oq)  ;  the  former  was  peculiar  to  man,  the  two 
latter  he  had  in  common  with  the  animals. §  The  soul, 
too,  though  a  distinct  entity,  was  invisible,  to  be  sought 
in  the  motes  floating  in  the  sunbeam,  or  in  what  sets 
them  in  motion.  ||  Certain  disembodied  souls  existed 
under  the  earth,  or  in  the  air,  as  heroes  or  daemons,  and 
appeared  to  men  in  dreams. If  The  individual  soul  em- 
anated from  the  world-soul,  or  central  fire,**  and  trans- 
migrated through  many  bodies. tt  Each  body  was  a 
prison  in  which  the  soul  was  confined  because  of  former 
sins,tt  and  to  which  it  was  bound  by  number  and  har- 

*  Arist.,  "  De  Anim,"  i.  4. 

t  Plutarch,  "  Plac.  Ph.,"  iv.  2.  %  Cicero,  "  Tusc,"  iv.  5. 

§  "Diog.  L.,"  viii.  30.  Mr.  Lewes  makes  wvf  the  element  pe- 
culiar to  man  ("Hist,  of  Philos.,"  i.  34).  Perhaps  another  text, 
given  in  Ritter  and  Preller  ("  Historia,"  §  120),  was  running  in  his 
mind  with  the  above,  but  he  has  given  neither  correctly. 

II  Arist.,  "  De  Anim.,"  i.  2. 

1  Ritter,  "  Hist,  of  Anc.  Philos.,"  i.  407. 

**  But  see  Zeller,  "  Philos.  d.  Griechen,"  i.  304,  305,  text  and 
notes. 

tt  Xenophanes,  in  "  Diog.  L.,"  viii.  36 ;  Ovid,  "  Met.,"  xv.  165. 

XX  Philolaus,  in  Clem.  Alex.,  "  Strom."  iii.  c.  iii. 


1 8  6  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

mony.*  The  body,  as  the  medium  of  perception  and 
exercise,  was  loved  by  the  soul,t  which,  released  by 
death,  was,  according  to  its  deserts,  either  rewarded  by 
an  incorporeal  life  in  a  higher  world,  or  punished,  either 
by  an  abode  in  Tartaros,  where  thunders  affrighted,  or  a 
return  to  the  other  bodies.  $  Pythagoras  thus  affirmed 
the  continued  being  of  the  soul.  The  traditional  theo- 
sophic  form  of  his  thought  was  imperfect,  untenable,  but 
his  thought  itself  of  vital  moment  to  Greece.  While  it 
did  not  solve,  it  framed  more  profoundly  the  problem  as 
to  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man.§ 

4.      THE  ELEATICS. 

Their  relation  to  our  belief  is  indirect.  Their  polemic 
against  the  popular  Polytheism,  their  search  after  the 
permanent  and  indestructible  amid  the  evanescent  and 
perishable,  brought  into  prominence  the  thought  of  unity 
and  continuity  in  the  government  of  the  world,  and  the 
thought  of  the  imperishableness  of  its  constituent  sub- 
stances. The  one  contained  the  germs  of  a  right  idea 
of  God,  the  other,  those  of  a  right  idea  of  man,  and  so 
were  full  enough  of  promise.  Thus  while  Eleaticism 
was  monistic,  did  not  intend  to  recognize  any  distinction 
between  matter  and  spirit,  it  yet  did  not  utterly  deny 
existence  to  the  dead  :  conceded  to  them  perception, 
though  only  of  the  cold  and  the  silent. ||     But  while  the 

*  Claud.  Mam.,  "  De  Stat.  Anim.,"  ii.  7.  t  lb. 

X  "Diog.  L.,"  viii.  31,  32;  Arist.,  "Anal.  Post.,  ii.  ii. 

§  Pherekydes  of  Syros  is  by  Cicero  reckoned  the  first  who 
taught  the  immortality  of  the  soul  ("Tusc,"  i.  16).  The  truth  is, 
the  belief  had  no  single  father  in  Greece,  but  was  a  nationaj 
growth. 

II  Arist.,  "  Met.,"  iii.  5 ;  Theophrastus,  "  De  Sensu,"  3,  4. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  187 

Eleatic  idea  of  permanence  was  beautiful  in  the  abstract, 
it  was  merciless  to  the  individual.  Birth  was  hateful 
(ffroyspoq)*^  Though  souls  were  sent  now  from  light  to 
darkness,  and  now  back  again,t  individual  existence 
was  evanescent.  Thought  was  unable  as  yet  to  recon- 
cile the  conflicting  elements  of  continuance  and  decay 
otherwise  than  by  attaining  the  conception  of  an  abstract 
unity,  the  One,  or  being,  and  sacrificing  to  it  every  in- 
dividual existence. 

4.    HERAKLEITOS. 

In  Herakleitos  "  war  is  the  father  of  all  things,  "t 
Becoming  is  the  law  of  the  universe  :  "All  is  and  is  not, 
for  though  it  does  in  truth  come  into  being,  yet  it  forth- 
with ceases  to  be."§  Hence,  "  no  man  can  wade  twice 
in  the  same  stream."||  All  phenomena  result  from  a 
"  perpetual  flux  and  reflux."  But  the  source  or  prin- 
ciple (fipyji)  of  this  ceaseless  change  is  fire.  "  Neither 
any  god  nor  any  man  made  this  world,  but  it  ever  was 
and  ever  shall  be  an  ever-living  fire."  If  And  in  his 
thought  "  living  "  was  more  real  than  "  fire  "  the  apyij 
was  a  (I'^X'n  "  immaterial  and  ever  moving  " — the  regu- 
lative and  intelligent  as  well  as  animating  principle  of 
the  universe.^'^*'    Of  this  fire  the  soul  of  man  is  a  spark 

*  Parmenides,  xv.  128-130.  But  see  conflicting  interpretations 
of  Ritter  ("Hist,  of  Philos.,"  i.  467)  and  Zeller  ("Philos.  del 
Griechen,"  i.  415,  note  3). 

t  "  Simpl.  Phys.,"  fol.  9  a,  Ritter  and  Preller,  «  Historia,"  §  151. 

t  Plutarch,  "  Is.  et  Osir.,"  45. 

§  Arist.,  "  Metaph.,"  iv.  3,  7  ;  Plato,  "  Thaet.,"  p.  152. 

II  Plato,  "Kratylos,"  p.  402. 

1  Herakl.  in  Clem.  Alex.,  "  Strom.,"  v.  p.  599  ;  R.  &  P.,  «  His- 
toria," §  34.  **  Arist.  "  De  Anim.,"  i.  2,  16. 


l88  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 

or  portion,  lives  as  fed  by  the  fire,  and  has  in  it  some- 
thing infinite.*  The  purer  the  fire,  the  more  perfect  is 
the  soul.  "  The  driest  souls  are  the  wisest  and  best."t 
The  dead  body  is  more  despicable  than  a  dunghill. 
According  to  the  doctrine  of  becoming,  there  was  in 
man  a  perishable  element ;  but,  according  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  primal  principle,  an  imperishable.  Man  as 
a  corporeal  phenomenon  stood  in  the  "  perpetual  flux 
and  reflux  ;"  man  as  an  emanation  of  the  ever-living 
fire  stood  above  it.  Hence,  "  the  very  birth  of  man  is 
a  calamity — a  birth  into  death."$  "  Death  is  in  our 
life,  and  life  in  our  death  ;  for  when  we  live  our  souls  are 
dead  and  buried  in  us,  but  when  we  die  our  souls  revive 
and  live."§  And  as  all  souls  are  akin,  "  men  are  mortal 
gods,  and  gods  immortal  men.  Our  life  is  the  death  of 
the  gods  j  our  death,  their  life."|| 

5.    EMPEDOKLES. 

Empedokles  was  an  eclectic.  On  the  one  side  he 
developed  the  permanent  and  unchangeable  being  of 
the  Eleatics.  and  so  maintained  that  nothing  can  begin 
to  be  which  formerly  was  not,  nothing  of  what  exists 
perish.  On  the  other,  he  evolved  the  Herakleitean 
strife  into  two  rival  forces,  love  and  hate,  from  whose 
antagonism  the  world  resulted.     The  former  principle 

*  Sext  Emp.  adv.  Math.,  vii.  127-130 ;  Plut.,  "Is  et  Osir.,"  76, 
77  ;  R.  &  P.,  "  Historia,"  §  39;  "  Diog.  L.,"  ix.  7. 

t  Zeller,  "  Philos.  d.  Griechen  ,"  i.  480  n.  i. 

X  Clem.  Alex.  viii.  432-434;  Ritter,  "Hist.  Anc.  Philos.,"  i. 
250. 

§  Sext.  Empir.  Pyrrh.  Hypotyp.,  iii.  230;  R.  &  P.,  "Historia/* 

§44. 

II  Herakl.  in  Hippolyt.  ix.  10 ;  Zeller,  "  Philos.  d.  Griechen,"  i 
483,  n.  I. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  189 

applied  to  man,  gave  both  pre-  and  post-existence.  Of 
mortal  beings  there  was  no  natural  birth,  nor  death's 
destruction  final.*  The  latter  principle  traced  the 
earthly  existence  to  moral  causes.  The  original  state 
was  sinless,  happy ;  but  man  fell,  and  was  doomed  to 
wander  ^hrice  ten  thousand  years  apart  from  the  blessed, 
a  fugitive  from  the  gods,  and  an  outcast,  obedient  to 
raging  strife. f  Hate  rules  below,  and  so  motion  is 
ceaseless,  rest  impossible.  Impious  souls  suffer  misery, 
and  are  driven  unresting  through  all  parts  of  the  world. 
But  the  happy  sphere  of  love  exists  still  alongside  the 
unblest  sphere  of  hate,  and  pious  men  when  they  die 
become  deathless  gods,  are  no  longer  mortals.^ 

6.    ANAXAGORAS. 

In  Anaxagoras  pre-Sokratic  thought  becomes  dis 
tinctly  theistic.  Mind  had  formed  the  world,  was  the 
intelligent  and  constructive  power  which  had  shaped 
the  primal  elements  in  the  Kosmos.  This  mind  was 
infinite  (a-stpov),  absolute  (aoroxpariq),  simple  in  essence 
(fj-ipLUTai  oddsA  ^pijfj.art),  subtlest  and  purest  of  things 
(ksTZTorarov  ts  Trdvrwv  ^pTj/xdrajv  xal  xaOapiozarov^j  the  un- 
moved cause  of  motion,  omniscient  (ndvra  eyvu)  vouq), 
unchangeable. §  While  mind  can  never  mix  with  things, 
it  yet  rules  whatever  has  a  soul,  is  present  in  rational 
beings,  whether  great  or  small.     All  mind  is  similar, 

*  Ritter,  "  Hist.  Anc.  Philos.,"  i.  502. 

t  Emped.  in  "  Plut.  de  Exilio,"  17;  Hippolyt,  vii.  29;  Plut., 
«de  Is.  et  Osir.,  26;  R.  &  P.,  "  Historia,"  §  179. 

t  Cf.  Ritter,  "  Hist.  Anc.  Philos.,"  i.  510  ff. ;  Zeller,  "  Philos.  d. 
Griechen,"  i.  547  ff, ;  Karsten,  "  De  Emped.,"  pp.  5-7. 

§  "  Simpl.  Phys.,"  i.  fol.  33;  R.  &  P.,  "  Historia,"  §  53. 


1  g  o  TJIE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

homogeneous  ;  difference  relates  to  degree,  greater  or 
less,  not  to  kind.*  And  mind  as  it  existed  in  man,  he 
did  not  distinguish  from  soul.f  The  two  were  substan- 
tially identical,  and,  as  Aristotle  understood,  had  the 
same  attributes.  While  then  to  Anaxagoras  man  was 
mortal,  mind  was  not.  The  a(oixa  could,  the  vouq  could 
not,  perish. 

The  Atomists,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Sophists, 
on  the  other,  had  for  our  belief  peculiarly  little  sig- 
nificance. The  materialism  of  the  first  and  the 
scepticism  of  the  second  were  alike  inimical  to  it.  Each 
only  helped  to  render  a  new  method  necessary,  and  the 
new  method  yielded  more  certain  results.  Meanwhile, 
we  can  see  the  inevitable  tendency  of  pre-Sokratic 
thought.  The  starting-point  had  been  extra-,  though 
not  anti-religious.  Greek  religion  was  peculiarly 
destitute  of  theological  ideas.  The  words  God  and 
Creator  were  not  to  the  Greek,  as  to  the  Hebrew, 
synonymous.  To  the  Hellenic  mind  the  creative 
process  was  Theogonic  as  well  as  Kosmogonic.  Its 
primary  question  was  not.  How  or  why  did  God  create 
the  world  ?  but  What  created  gods  and  men  ?  Thus  in 
no  impious  or  atheistic  spirit  did  the  earlier  thinkers 
attribute  the  creation  to  water,  or  air,  or  fire.  They 
but  obeyed  the  instinct  or  intuition  which  compelled 
them  to  seek  what  their  religion  did  not  offer — a  cause 
for  the  world.  But  this  search  involved  another.  As 
in  Mythology,  the  Chthonian  court  had  to  rise  as  a 
supplement  to  the  Olympian,  so  in  Philosophy  the 
question  as  to  man's  whence,  involved  the  question  as 
to  his  whither.     The  nature   of  the  cause,  too,  deter- 

*  ZeUer,  "  Philos.  d.  Griechen,"  i.  680  ff. 
t  Arist.,  "  De  Anim.,"  i.  2 ;  Zeller,  i.  696. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  igj 

mined  the  nature  of  the  effect.  The  eschatological 
idea  shared  the  fortunes  of  the  theological,  was  with  it 
materialized,  spiritualized,  impersonalized,  validated  or 
dissolved.  In  the  early  physical  philosophies  soul  is 
but  life,  inseparable  from  body,  common  to  whatever 
can  move  or  cause  motion.  As  the  cause  is  refined,  so 
is  the  soul ;  as  permanence,  intelligence,  feeling,  volition, 
are  attributed  to  the  one,  they  are  attributed  to  the 
other.  The  point  where  mind  becomes  the  creator  is 
also  the  point  where  soul  becomes  mind.  Thought 
thus  drives  the  thinker  to  connect  the  Highest  in  the 
universe  with  the  highest  in  himself  ;  degree,  not  kind, 
quantity,  not  quality,  distinguishes  the  two.  The  faith 
which  had  resulted  from  the  more  or  less  unconscious 
and  collective  action  of  the  religious  instincts,  resulted 
also  from  the  conscious  and  deliberate  deductions  of  the 
reason — the  faith  that,  while  the  body  dies  the  man 
survives. 

VI.    THE  LYRIC   AND   TRAGIC   POETS. 

While  philosophy  was  pursuing  its  quest  after  ultimate 
and  necessary  truth,  and  succeeding  by  failure,  poetry 
was  giving  the  most  perfect  expression  possible  to  the 
living  and  creative  thought  of  the  people.  Each 
represented  in  a  different  way  the  Greek  mind — the 
one  its  inquisitive  and  intellectual  side,  the  other  its 
ideal  and  ethical.  Philosophy  was  more  individual; 
poetry  more  national.  The  first  was  a  search  after 
elements  above  and  behind  the  accepted  faith ;  the 
second,  a  growth  from  seeds  contained  in  it.  While, 
then,  philosophy  was  the  beginning  of  a  new,  poetry 
was  the  continuation  of  the  old,  cycle  of  Greek  spiritual 


1 9  2  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

development.  The  two  cycles  could  not  fail  now  and 
then  to  touch,  and  even  to  blend,  but  in  general  their 
course  was  parallel,  not  identical,  the  one  using  the 
mythology  of  the  past  as  the  vehicle  of  the  religious  and 
ethical  thought  of  the  present,  the  other  seeking  to 
frame  for  the  future  terms  to  express  universal  and 
necessary  truth.  Hence  we  must  trace  in  this  section 
the  growth  of  thought  in  the  poetic  sphere,  so  as  to 
bring  it  abreast  of  the  philosophic. 


THE   LYRIC   POETS. 

The  earlier  and  minor  lyric  poets  need  not  be  ex- 
amined. Their  significance  is  political  rather  than 
religious.  In  general,  what  Bunsen  says  of  Solon  may 
be  said  of  the  others.  They  by  no  means  deny  or  call 
in  question  the  punishment  of  the  evil-doer  after  death, 
but  they  are  silent  on  the  point.*  Otherwise  is  it  with 
Pindar.  He  is  the  pre-eminent  religious  poet  of 
Greece,  penetrated  by  the  sense  of  the  divine  in  man 
and  nature,  inspired  by  the  highest  religious  ideas  of 
the  past  and  present.f  The  Eleusinian  mysteries,  the 
Orphic  theosophy,  and  the  new-born  philosophy,  have 
combined  to  purify  and  ennoble  his  faith.  His  theology 
is  almost  infinitely  higher  than  the  Homeric.  Olympos 
has  ceased  to  be  in  a  state  of  chronic  feud.  The 
old  names  denote  new  deities.  But  our  belief  is  the 
point  where  the  contrast  with  Homer  becomes  sharp- 

*  "  God  in  Hist,"  ii.  133. 

t  See  Bunsen's  admirable  chapter  on  Pindar,  "  God  in  Hist," 
ii.  132  ff. ;  Nagelsbach,  "  Nach-Hom.  Theol.,  405-407. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  193 

• 

est.*  While  mortal  man  is  but  the  dream  of  a  shadow 
\<jxiaq  ov6t/>],f  his  soul,  the  er^wAov,  lives  in  death,  for  it 
alone  is  from  God4  "  The  soul  of  man  is  immortal, 
and  at  one  time  has  an  end  which  is  termed  dying,  and  at 
another  is  born  again,  but  never  perishes."§  It  was 
meant  to  attain  progressive  happiness  through 
progressive  holiness.  The  souls  of  the  impious, 
remote  from  heaven,  flit  in  murderous  pain  be- 
neath the  inevitable  yoke  of  woe  ;  but  the  souls  of 
the  pious  dwell  in  heaven,  chanting  hymns. ||  Once  sin 
is  expiated,  the  soul  returns  to  earth  and  becomes  a 
king,  or  a  man  great  in  might  or  wisdom,  a  saint  to 
after  ages  ;1[  and  death  is  followed  by  a  happy  life  in 
Hades  with  the  honored  of  the  gods.  Then  once  they 
have  been  thrice  tried  by  birth  and  death  and  kept 
their  souls  free  from  sin,  they  "  ascend  the  path  of  Zeus 
to  the  tower  of  Kronos,  where  the  Islands  of  the  Blest 
are  refreshed  by  the  breezes  of  ocean,  and  golden 
flowers  glitter."** 


2.   THE   TRAGIC   POETS. 


The  Dramas  of  -^schylos  are  more  distinctly  national 
/>.,  Homeric,  than  the  odes  of  Pindar  ;  mirror  better  the 
then  faith  of  the  people,  unmodified  by  Orphic  or  other 

*  K.  O.  MUUer,  "  Hist,  of  Lit.  of  Anc.  Gr.,"  i.  304. 
t  "  Pythia,"  viii.  136  (Heyne's  ed.,  1798). 
X  "  Fragm.  ex  Threnis,"  ii.  5. 

§  Plato,  "  Meno,"  i.  p.  81.  I|  Fragm.  ex  Threnis,"  iii. 

Tf  lb.,  iv.     See  also  Plato,  "  Meno,"  ut  supra. 
**  "  Olymp.,"  ii.  123-130.    But  see  also  lines  103-144. 

13 


194  THE  BELIEF  J IV  lAIMOJ?  TALITY. 

alien  influences.*  Yet  to  ^schylos  the  soul  has  ceased 
to  be  a  shadow.  The  mighty  jaws  of  fire  cannot  consume 
the  spirit  of  the  dead,  t  The  dead  are  actual  and  potent 
beings,  can  hear  and  answer  prayers,  receive  sacrifices,^ 
operate  upon  earth  to  bless  or  ban  the  living,  or  awake 
the  Erinyes  to  the  work  of  retribution. §  The  king 
retains  the  semblance  of  regal  dignity,  is  godlike, 
lffoda(iJ.w'>>^  or  divine,  ^so?,]!  is  more  miserable  without 
than  with  the  shadows  of  his  ancient  honors,  before  than 
after  he  has  been  revenged.lT  But  though  ^schylos 
attributes  to  the  dead  more  reality  of  being  than  Homer, 
yet  he  describes  their  state  as  cold  and  dreary.  The 
only  light  they  have  is  coextensive  or  commensurate  with 
darkness.**  Though  Dareois  be  still  a  king,  ixaxapiraq 
and  ^£o?,tt  yet  he  bids  the  living  enjoy  life  while  they 
have  it,  "  for  the  dead  are  shrouded  in  thick  gloom, 
where  wealth  avails  not.^^tX  Perhaps  it  were  incorrect 
to  say,  that  the  only  under-  and  after-world  ^Eschylos 
knew  was  retributive ;  but  certainly  in  his  idea  of  the 
future,  as  in  his  idea  of  the  present,  the  penalties  of 
guilt  hide  the  rewards  of  righteousness.  §§  Hence  Aides 
is  to  him  another  Zeus,  who  gives  final  judgment  to 
the  dead  ;  a  stern  inquisitor  of  men,  who  views  their 
deeds  and  writes  them  in  the  tablets  of  his  mind  j  a  god 


*  See  the  beautiful  essay  of  Mr.  Westcott  on  "  ^Eschylos  as  a 
Religious  Teacher,"  Contemporary  Review,  vol.  iii.  pp.  351-373. 

t  "  Choeph.,"  316. 

X  "Choeph.,"  475,  492,  and  often.  §  Eum.,  114,737. 

II  «  Pers.,"  635,  645.  ir  "  Choeph.,"  346  ff.         **  lb.,  311. 

tt  "  Pers.,"  63s,  645,  (^1.  X%  lb.,  835. 

§§  See  his  doctrine  as  to  the  Erinyes,  in  such  texts  as  Eum., 
312,322,910-915. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE,  195 

that  destroyeth,  an  avenger  terrible,  whose  sentence  the 
lewd  offender,  when  he  dies  shall  not  escape."* 

Sophokles,  like  ^schylos,  recognizes  the  continued 
existence  of  the  soul  after  death.  His  picture  of  the 
future,  as  of  the  present,  is,  as  to  general  effect,  more 
calm  and  beautiful,  more  ideal  and  less  mythical,  than 
that  of  ^schylos,  but  each  is  in  its  ground-lines  the 
same.  The  dead  are  conscious,  know  what  transpires 
on  the  earth,  remember  what  they  suffered  here,  love  or 
hate  as  in  life,  work  good  or  ill  to  the  living.!  Their 
form  and  state  resemble  their  earthly.  Oidipous  expects 
to  enter  Hades  eyeless.^  Kings  still  rule  among  the 
dead.§  But  no  happiness  or  reward  can  be  enjoyed 
hereafter.  The  Fragment,  which  pronounces  the  initiated 
thrice  happy,  stands  alone.||  Antigone,  indeed,  rejoices 
to  join  her  beloved  dead,  but  only  because  death  was  to 
her,  as  to  familiar  maxims  the  world  over,  the  end  of 
trouble.ir  Oidipous,  the  blameless  king,  the  victim  of 
a  terrible  destiny,  purified  from  his  unconscious  crime, 
ennobled  into  saintliness  by  suffering,  takes  a  touching 
farewell  of  the  sunlight  and  beauty  of  earth.**  The 
chorus  begs  for  him  a  painless  and  easy  death,  an  un- 
troubled descent  into  Hades, tt  but  neither  king  nor 
chorus  anticipates  other  reward  than  the  ^bOrvja<Tia.  His 
very  grave  works  good  to  the  Athenians,  ill  to  the  Theb- 
ans,  but  to  himself  there  is  only  a  joyless  life  in  Hades. 

Our  belief,  like  the  other  religious  ideas  of  Greece, 
suffers  in  the  hands  of  Euripides.     The  mythical  side 

*  "  Suppl.,  226,  227,  408-410 ;  "  Eum.,"  260-265. 
t  "  Antig.,  65,  89 ;  "  Elec,"  449,  459,  482. 

X  «  Oid.  Tyr.,"  137 1.        §  "  Elec,"  833.        ||  Supra,  p.  200,  n.  % 
1  895.    Cf.  "  Oid.  Kol.,"  955.  **  *'  Oid.  KoL,"  1551. 

tt  1556  ff. 


196 


THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY. 


is  indeed  now  and  then  exhibited,  and  prayers  and  wor- 
ship offered  to  the  dead  heroes,  or  doubt  or  hope  as  to 
the  state  of  the  pious  expressed.  But  the  poet's  own 
belief  was  hostile  to  a  personal  immortality.*  .He  is 
indeed  at  times  enigmatical,  "as  in  that  sentence,  which 
may  mean  much  or  little,  according  as  it  is  understood, 
quoted  in  Plato's  Gorgias,t  "  Who  knows  if  life  be  not 
death,  and  death  life  ?  "  but  elsewhere  he  quite  decisive- 
ly expresses  the  impersonal  view.  The  mind  (o  voD?) 
of  the  dead  does  not  live,  but  has  immortal  intelligence 
(pcy/aiyv),  falling  back  into  the  immortal  aether.$  And 
so  he  explains  that,  while  what  the  earth  produced  re- 
turns to  the  earth,  the  offspring  of  the  celestial  aether 
returns  to  the  vault  of  heaven. § 

The  attitude  of  the  Greek  mind  to  our  belief  had 
hitherto  been  progressively  affirmative.  Philosophy 
starting  without  any  idea  of  spirit  or  permanent  being, 
had  been  driven  to  affirm  both.  Poetry,  the  mirror  of 
the  ideal  religion  of  Greece,  had  up  to  this  point  become 
more  and  more  positive  in  its  conception  of  the  future 
and  its  relation  to  the  present.  But  the  Sophists  in 
philosophy,  and  Euripides  in  poetry,  were  similar  phe- 
nomena resulting  from  similar  causes, — failure  producing 
empiricism  and  scepticism.  The  ethical  idea  of  right- 
eousness, unqualified  by  the  religious  idea  of  goodness, 
had  given  to  the  intense  and  intuitive  Greek  spirit  the 
conception  of  a  universe  ruled  by  Nemesis  rather  than 
by  Eros.  The  active  moral  forces  of  the  world  were 
punitive.     Their  beneficent  action  had  fallen  into  the 

*     Nagelsbach,  "  Nach.-Hom.  Theol.,  459-460. 
t  P.,  492.  \  "Hellen.,"  1013. 

§  "  Chrysipp.  Fr.,"  833.  See  more  to  same  purpose  in  Nagels- 
bach, 460  ff. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  197 

back-,  their  retributive  alone  stood  in  the  fore-ground. 
The  old  mythical  forms  were  made  by  the  stern  spirit 
of  ^schylos,  the  calm  yet  severe  genius  of  Sophokles, 
to  reflect,  for  here  and  hereafter,  the  action  of  those  ter- 
rible forces.  But  to  spirits  more  sceptical,  less  earnest, 
those  stern  ethical  religious  ideas  seemed  exaggerated, 
false  as  their  mythical  veil,  and  so,  without  the  idea  of 
divine  goodness  to  lead  to  a  platform  of  higher  faith, 
the  Greek  spirit  turned  aside  in  Euripides  to  a  feeble 
pantheistic  materialism,  which  abolished  the  retributions 
of  Hades  by  impersonalizing  the  soul. 

VII.    PLATO. 

The  relation  of  Sokrates  to  our  belief  is  rather  uncer- 
tain. The  Memorabilia  is  silent,  and  it  is  perilous  to 
base  conjectures  on  any  saying  of  the  Platonic  Sokrates. 
The  Sokrates  of  the  Apology,  perhaps  the  nearest  ap- 
proximation to  the  reality,  is  dubious.  While  certain 
that  "  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man,  either  in  life 
or  after  death,"  uncertain  whether  "  death  be  a  state  of 
nothingness  and  utter  unconsciousness,  or  a  change  and 
migration  of  the  soul  from  this  world  to  the  next."* 
The  reasons  which  Xenophon  makes  the  dying  Kyros 
adduce  for  the  soul's  possible  continuancef  have  often 
been  traced  to  Sokratic  inspiration,  but  the  point  must- 
always  remain  conjectural. 

With  Plato,  however,  it  is  dijfferent.  He  was  the  true 
Prophet  of  our  belief,  for  the  Greeks  and  for  humanity. 
No  man  has  contributed  more  to  the  culture  and  faith 
of  the  world.     Augustine  was  a  Christian  Father,  Plato 

*  i.  40,  41.  t  "  Cyrop.,"  viii.  7,  17-23. 


1 9  8  THE  BEL  lEF  IN  IMMOR  TA  LITY. 

a  heathen  Philosopher ;  but  the  heathen  was  more  emi- 
nent as  a  religious  thinker  than  the  Christian.  There 
is  more  of  the  essence  and  spirit  of  Christian  theology 
in  the  Dialogues  of  the  one  than  in  the  De  Civitate  Dei 
of  the  other.  The  Providence  of  God  has  reversed  the 
order  of  History,  and  found  for  all  that  was  noblest  in 
the  Greek  a  home  within  the  Church  of  Christ. 

Plato  was  in  the  realm  of  thought,  in  a  more  eminent 
sense  than  any  other  Greek,  not  excepting  even  Aristotle, 
the  heir  of  the  past  and  the  creator  of  the  future.  He 
was,  indeed,  less  cosmopolitan  and  more  Grecian  than 
Aristotle,  but  simply  because  he  was  less  extensive  he 
was  more  intense.  In  him  were  concentrated  all  the 
hereditable  elements  of  the  Greek  genius,  but  they  were 
combined,  sublimed,  and  complemented  by  a  genius 
peculiarly  his  own.  The  sense  of  the  divine  presence 
and  providence  that  lived  in  the  old  mythical  poems, 
the  faith  in  the  likeness  and  intercourse  of  gods  and 
men  that  inspired  Homer  and  Hesiod,  the  aspiration 
after  a  happy  hereafter  embodied  in  the  mysteries,  the 
Orphic  searchings  after  a  system  of  the  universe  in 
which  gods  and  men  became  emanations  and  manifest- 
ations of  supreme  deity,  the  philosophical  attempts  to 
reach  a  primal  substance  or  first  cause,  the  exalted 
faith  of  the  Lyric  Poets,  the  ethical  conceptions  which 
had  received  ideal  expression  in  Tragedy, — these,  and 
much  more  than  these,  Plato  inherited,  and  his  inherit- 
ance he  harmonized  and  enlarged  with  the  native  wealth 
of  his  own  splendid  intellect.  The  old  metaphysical 
abstractions  ceased  in  his  hands  to  be  abstract ;  became 
personal,  conscious,  moral.  The  idea  of  the  good  qual- 
ified the  old  rigid  ethical  idea  embodied  in  the  Drama. 
Man  ceased  to  be  phenomenal  and  became  real,  the- 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE,  j^^ 

ogony  was  sublimed  into  theology,  and  the  world  of 
eternal  ideas  made  to  transcend  that  of  transient 
appearances. 

Plato's  doctrine  of  immortality  is  too  integral  to  his 
entire  system  in  all  its  phases  to  be  separable  from  it, 
so  lives  like  a  subtle  essence  in  all  his  modes  of  thought 
as  to  be  hardly  translatable  into  another  language  and 
other  concatenations  than  his  own.  A  philosophy  may 
be  analytically  as  a  substance  may  be  chemically  dis- 
solved, but  in  neither  case  have  the  elements,  as  single 
and  distinct,  the  same  qualities  and  force  as  they  had 
when  combined.  Plato's  arguments  for  immortality, 
isolated,  modernized,  may  be  feeble,  even  valueless,  but 
allowed  to  stand  where  and  as  he  himself  puts  them, 
they  have  an  altogether  different  worth.  The  ratiocina- 
tive  parts  of  the  Phaedo  thrown  into  syllogisms  may  be 
easily  demolished  by  a  hostile  logician  ;  but  in  the  dia- 
logue as  a  whole  there  is  a  subtle  spirit  and  cumulative 
force  which  logic  can  neither  seize  nor  answer.  Indeed, 
the  belief  belongs  to  the  man  rather  than  his  philosophy. 
He  holds  it  at  every  stage  of  his  mental  development, 
finds  reason  for  it  in  almost  every  principle  he  formu- 
lates. It  is  involved  in  his  idea  of  God — the  divine 
and  therefore  immortal  part  of  man  is  derived  from  the 
supreme  Creator  ;*  in  his  theory  of  beauty — the  beauti- 
ful beheld,  not  in  image,  but  reality,  makes  man,  "  the 
friend  of  God,  and  immortal. "f  His  psychology  in  all 
its  forms,  whether  it  describes  the  individual  soul  as  of 
the  same  nature  and  character  as  the  universal,  X  or  as  a 
simple,  uncompounded,  and  so  incorruptible  principle,§ 

*  "  Tim.,"  iii.  34,  35,  41, 69.  t  "  Sympos.,"  iii.  207,  208,  212. 

X  "  Tim.,"  iii.  69,  90.  §  "  Phzedo,"  i.  78  ff. 


2  oo  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

or  as  in  its  own  nature  indestructible  even  by  its  own  evil,* 
or  as  self-moved  and  the  cause  of  motion,!  or  as  the  divine 
and  contemplative  reason  ;$  his  theory  of  knowledge, 
whether  as  reminiscence§  or  as  identification  of  know- 
ing and  being,  participation  of  the  perceiver  in  the 
eternal  ideas  perceived, 1|  or  as  the  intuition  or  vision  of 
love  and  beauty,  or  things  in  their  own  immutable 
nature ;  IT  his  moral  conceptions,  whether  represented 
in  the  uneasy  conscience  of  a  dying  man**  or  in  the 
inevitable  retribution  which  follows  crime,  or  the  reward 
which  crowns  virtue,  or  in  the  divine  order  and  govern- 
ment of  the  universeft — are  each,  singly  and  collect- 
ively, made  to  imply  and  prove  the  immortality  of  man. 
It  stands  in  the  Phaedo  as  the  crown  and  complement 
of  a  wise  and  beautiful  life  ;  in  the  Republic,  as  the 
regulated  end  and  realized  idea  of  life  in  a  perfect  state. 
In  the  Symposium  it  rewards  the  inspired  devotee  of 
love ;  in  the  Phaedros  'it  consummates  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge  and  virtue. 

With  deep  regret  that  a  worthier  exposition  of  Plato's 
doctrine  of  immortality  cannot  now  be  attempted,  this 
essay  must  close.  In  him  our  belief  reached  its  culmi- 
nating point  in  Greece.  The  Phaedo  "  may  be  regarded 
as  a  dialectical  approximation  to  the  truth  of  immortal- 
ity."* But  Plato's  position  was  not  simply  the  meta- 
physician's.    His   conception  was   profoundly  ethical, 

*  "  Repub.,"  bk,  x.,  ii.  609  £f.  t  "  Phsedr.,"  iii.  245. 

t  lb.,  249.  §  "  Meno,"  ii.  81,  86 ;  "  Phaedo,"  i.  73  & 

II  "  Phaedo,"  i.65,  66.  t  "  Sympos.,"  iii.  212. 

**  "  Repub.,"  bk.  i.,  ii.  330. 

tt  "  Gorgias,"  i.  523-527 ;  and  the  beautiful  myth  of  Er,  the  son 
of  Armenius,  "  Repub.,"  bk.  x.,  ii.  614  £f. 
"Jowett,  "  Plato,"  i.  391. 


THE  BELIEF  IN  GREECE.  2  01 

rested  on  the  moral  nature  of  man  and  the  divine  moral 
government.  It  was,  too,  profoundly  religious,  often 
in  its  form,  almost  always  in  its  matter.  He  outgrew 
as  his  thoughts  ripened  the  metempsychosis  of  his 
earlier  dialogues.  The  same  tendencies  and  habits  of 
thought  which  made  the  Greek  gods,  and  even  the 
highest  Platonic  abstractions,  anthropomorphic  and 
anthropopathic,  made  the  personality  of  man  too  de- 
cided to  allow  a  continued  metempsychosis  to  be  con- 
ceived. The  ethical  idea  defined,  too,  the  personal. 
Responsibility  belonged  to  the  individual,  and  was 
everlasting  in  its  issues.  The  man  could  never  cease 
to  be  himself,  or  to  bear  in  himself  the  results  of  his 
actions.  Immortality  was  twofold — of  souls  and  their 
acts. 

The  post-Platonic  history  of  the  doctrine  need  not  be 
here  written.  It  lies  upon  the  broad  face  of  the  succes- 
sive philosophies.  Aristotle,  true  to  his  severe  scien- 
tific spirit  and  purpose,  left  the  question  undiscussed, 
or  only  touched  it  with  a  hesitation  which  had  made  his 
utterances  standing  puzzles  to  the  student  of  his  philos- 
ophy.* Epicurean,  Stoic,  and  Sceptic  dealt  with  it  as 
the  spirit  and  principles  of  their  systems  demanded. 
How  Christianity  found  the  belief,  dead  but  with  a 
name  to  live,  unannihilated  by  the  vehement  denials  of 
Lucretius,  unproved  by  the  balanced  but  unpersuasive 
periods  of  Cicero,  ridiculed  by  the  mocking  descriptions 
of  Lucian,  impotent  amid  the  dissolution  of  the  old 
religion ;  what  Christianity  made  it,  a  living  and  cora- 

t  See  Sir  Alexander  Grant's  scholarly  discussion  of  the  subject, 
"  Ethics  of  Arist.,"  vol.  i.  pp.  294-302,  3rd  ed.  See  also  the  vigor- 
ous but  more  limited  and  partial  representation  of  Grote,  "Aris- 
totle," ii.  233-235. 


2  o2  THE  BELIEF  IN  IMMOR  TALITY. 

manding  faith,  indissolubly  bound  up  with  the  facts 
and  doctrines  she  sent  like  a  glorious  constellation  into 
the  dark  and  almost  starless  heaven ;  its  varied  fortunes 
within  and  without  the  Church  during  the  eighteen 
Christian  centuries  \  its  position  to-day  in  the  face  of 
the  science  that  threatens  it  from  the  side  of  matter  and 
the  philosophy  from  the  side  of  mind  ;  its  claims  upon 
life ;  its  reasons  against  doubt  and  denial ; — these,  how- 
ever inviting,  are  too  extensive  subjects  to  be  handled 
here  and  now.  For  what  is  the  inalienable  property  of 
humanity  we  need  not  fear.  The  revelation  of  God  is 
coextensive  with  man,  and  though  obscured  in  the  indi- 
vidual, now  by  culture  and  now  by  barbarism,  lives  and 
lightens  in  the  race.  Meanwhile  this  essay  cannot  more 
fitly  close  than  in  the  words  of  the  great  prophet  of  the 
belief  whose  history  it  has  tried  through,  two  short 
cycles  to  follow* : — 

MAA'  ao  IfunTzsidtoixsOa^voixtf^nvreq  d.Odvarov  ttjv  (J^oyriv  xd^ 
duvarrjv  Tzdvra  [ikv  xa/.d  dviyeffOat^  Tzdvra  dk  dyaOd^  TTJq  avui 
odou  del  i^ofisOa  xdl  dixaioaovq'j  (xsra  <ppovT)ff£U)<;  ita'^ri  rp6~(o 
i.7Tir7jd£U(T0fi£V^  tva  xdi  ij/xlv  abzolq  tpiXoi  a)[xev  xdX  roTq  Osolq^ 
auToo  re  fiivovreq  hOdds^  xdi  irrstddv  rd  dOXa  abrr^q 
xo;j.t^(6/j.eda^  wq  Tzep  ol  vtxTjfpopoi  iztpiaytipoiivjoi^  xai  kOdds 
xai  Iv  T^/£AceT£T7ro/)££'a,  ^v  dieXr]X6da/xey,  eu  TrpaTZOiuev, 

*  «Repub.,"bk.x.,ii.62i. 


COMPARA  TIVE  PSYCHOLOG  V,  &-C.  2 03 


THE  PLACE  OF  THE  INDO-EUROPEAN    AND 
SEMITIC  RACES  IN  HISTORY. 

PART  I. 

COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  THE 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

I. 

A /TAN  is,  as  it  were,  the  condensed  secret  of  the 
universe.  As  he  is  concerned  with  every  science, 
every  science  is  directly  or  ultimately,  concerned  with 
him.  The  interpreter  of  Nature  can  fulfil  his  office 
only  by  the  interpretation  of  himself.  Man  interpreted 
is  Nature  interpreted  ;  and  as  he  can  realize  manhood 
only  in  and  through  society,  an  adequate  interpretation 
of  man  involves  an  adequate  interpretation  of  society. 
But  society  is  not  simply  present,  contemporaneous,  is 
the  daughter  of  the  past,  the  mother  of  the  future,  in- 
heriting that  she  may  augment  and  transmit  the  creative 
and  plastic  forces  that  find  in  men  perishable,  in  their 
institutions  and  works  permanent,  forms.  And  so,  as 
the  product  of  many  forces,  manifest  and  subtle,  physi- 
cal, spiritual,  and  social,  working  through  countless 
ages,  man  must  be  studied  in  his  Becoming  that  he  may 
be  understood  as  Become.  It  is  with  humanity  as  with 
a  great  river,  till  its  source  be  discovered  and  the  streams 
and  streamlets  contributing  to  its  volume  numbered  and 
distinguished,  the  river  is  a  mystery,  an  unread  riddle. 


204  COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  AND 

And  here  the  whence  tells  the  whither.  What  lifts  but 
a  corner  of  the  veil  that  conceals  our  past  lets  a  ray  of 
light  fall  on  our  future. 

What  is  here  called  Comparative  Psychology  is  one 
of  the  ways  along  which  our  age  has  been  trying  to 
reach  a  solution  to  the  old  problem — How  has  man 
become  what  he  is?  W^hat  forces  have  civilized  him, 
determined  his  progress,  made  him  man  ?  It  does  not 
so  much  attempt  to  reach  the  source  as  to  understand 
the  conduct  and  the  course  of  the  majestic  river  whose 
drops  are  men.  It  regards  the  institutions  and  indus- 
tries, literatures  and  arts,  philosophies  and  religions  of 
the  world  as  phenomena  needing  to  be  explained  and 
capable  of  a  rational  explanation.  It  asks,  Why  have 
those  of  Egypt  and  Greece,  Assyria  and  China,  India 
and  England  arisen,  and  been  at  once  so  like  and  so 
unlike  ?  What  was  their  relation,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
man,  on  the  other,  to  Nature  ?  Our  questions  thus  con- 
cern the  origin  not  of  man,  but  of  his  civilizations,  not 
the  creation,  but  the  government  of  the  world.  Yet 
the  two  classes  of  questions  run  into  each  other.  The 
discussions  concerned  with  the  history  of  man  are  but 
a  continuation,  on  a  higher  and  broader  field,  of  those 
concerned  with  his  creation. 

Comparative  Psychology  ought  to  imply,  by  its  very 
name,  that  to  it  the  causes  of  the  above  specified  phe- 
nomena are  psychical,  rational.  As  mind  can  alone 
explain  the  becoming  of  the  universe,  nothing  less  than 
mind  can  explain  the  course,  achievements,  and  progress 
of  humanity.  The  reason  embodied  and  particularized 
in  man  is  expressed  in  his  works.  He  is  their  creator, 
but  a  creator  whose  power  is  limited  and  whose  action 
is  variously  conditioned.     Nature,  by  her  direct  or  in- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  205 

direct  action,  may  stimulate  or  stunt,  develop  or  repress, 
what  she  finds  in  mind,  but  she  must  find  mind  before 
she  can  act  on  it.  Physical  influences  may  explain  dif- 
ferences in  the  psychical  creations  of  different  peoples 
and  times,  but  cannot  explain  the  creations  themselves, 
may  determine  their  form,  but  cannot  furnish  their  mat- 
ter. Here  Nature  may  be  a  necessary  occasion,  but  mind 
is  an  essential  cause.  Without  the  occasion  the  cause 
may  be  inoperative,  but  without  the  cause  the  occasion 
could  not  exist,  can  have  no  being  apart  from  the  activ- 
ity it  supplies  with  the  condition  and  opportunity  for 
exercise. 

There  exists  at  this  moment,  both  in  English  and 
continental  thought,  a  strong  tendency  'to  exaggerate 
and  exalt  the  influence  of  Nature  on  man  and  society. 
The  culture  of  our  age  is  so  strongly  impregnated  with 
the  ideas  and  principles  of  physical  science,  that  it  can 
hardly  conceive  order  without  necessity,  or  law  without 
invariable  uniformity.  The  phenomena  of  mind  and 
thought  become,  it  is  imagined,  more  intelligible  when 
construed  from  the  standpoint  of  Nature,  or  in  the 
terms  of  matter  and  force.  Law  and  order  in  history 
are  conceived  to  involve  the  dominion  of  Nature  and 
necessity  over  society  and  man.  The  theory  of  evolu- 
tion has  given  new  meaning  and  force  to  the  brilliant, 
but  unqualified  and  crude,  generalizations  of  Mr.  Buckle, 
and  to  the  bald  and   inelastic   theory  of  Dr.  Draper.* 

*  "  History  of  Civilization  in  England,"  vol.  i.  cc.  i.  ii.  "  The 
Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,"  vol.  i.  c.  i.  Dr.  Draper  holds 
strongly  "  the  complete  control  of  physical  agents  "  over  man  and 
society ;  and  believes  that  **  the  varied  aspects  he  presents  in  differ- 
ent countries  are  the  necessary  consequences  of  these  influences." 
"  The  origin,  existence,  and  death  of  nations  depend  thus  on  phys- 


2o6  COM  PAR  A  TIVE  PSYCHOLOG  Y  AND 

The  continuity  of  Nature  can  now  be  seen  to  be  abso- 
lute and  universal.  The  creative  process  is  one  through- 
out,  operates  along  the  whole  line  and  in  all  its  divisions, 
inorganic,  organic,  and  super-organic.  Society  and  civ- 
ilization rise  out  of  the  interactive  play  of  organism 
and  environment ;  are  but  the  last  and  most  complex 
results  of  the  great  "  struggle  for  existence." 

Now,  we  have  here  to  do  with  only  one  point,  the 
relation  of  Nature  to  the  development  of  man  and  so- 
ciety. In  the  problem  to  be  solved,  whether  is  Nature 
or  man  the  more  influential  factor .?  Suppose  society 
does  rise  out  of  the  interactive  play  of  organism  and 
environment,  what  is  the  worth  of  their  respective  parts 
in  the  interactive  play  ?  Organism,  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  note  here,  signifies  no  completed  mechanical 
product,  or  structure  capable  of  various  modifications 
and  degrees  of  growth,  but  a  being  full  of  many  and 
immense  potentialities,  all  struggling  to  become  actual 
and  active.  It  denotes  no  mere  cluster  of  absorbent 
and  assimilative  vessels,  but  a  center  of  creative  ener- 
gies, intellectual,  ethical,  social,  conscious  and  voluntary 
in  its  action.  Environment  can  here  mean,  not 
simply  climatic  and  geographical  influences,  but  man, 
past,  present,  and  to  be.  The  plant  is  a  thing  of  the 
soil,  the  animal  the  creature  of  its  physical  conditions, 
but  man  can  make  his  own  world,  or  be  it.  The  more 
civilized  he  becomes  society  has  the  greater.  Nature  the 
less,  influence  on  him.  He,  indeed,  so  acts  on  Nature 
as  in  course  of  time  to  change  her  very  features  and 

ical  influences,  which  are  themselves  the  result  of  immutable  laws." 
And  he  carries  his  doctrine  so  far  as  to  hold  that  "an  empire 
that  lies  east  and  west  must  be  more  powerful  than  one  that  lies 
north  and  south." 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 


207 


character,  to  transfigure,  to  idealize  her,  to  make  her 
the  mirror  of  spirit,  the  consecrated  home  of  mind. 
Historic  events,  heroic  deeds,  sublimed  memories  and 
beliefs,  invest  mountain,  field,  and  flood  with  associa- 
tions sacred  to  the  present  because  significant  of  the 
past.  The  voices  of  the  gods  are  heard  in  the  thunders 
that  wander  round  the  brow  of  Olympos,  in  the  breezes 
that  murmur  through  the  oaks  of  Dodona.  The  names 
of  the  heroes  glorify  and  immortalize  the  places  where 
they  fought  and  fell.  There  shines  on  Thermopylae  and 
Salamis,  Morgarten  and  Sempatch,  a  light  that  never 
was  on  sea  or  shore,  creative  of  "  the  inspiration  and 
the  poet's  dream."  Nature  informed  with  mind  helps 
to  form  it,  lives  in  its  life,  receives  that  she  may  give 
ideas  and  images  of  beauty,  but  alone  she  is  increative. 
Leave  the  physical,  but  change  the  psychical  conditions, 
and  the  man  is  changed.  Greece  has  still  her  Ionic 
heaven ;  her  laughing  sea,  the  crystal  air  through  which 
her  sons  can  lightly  trip,  but  neither  to  Greek  nor  Turk 
does  the  Periclean  age  return.  The  occasion  can  never 
be  the  cause.  Mind,  not  Nature,  must  explain  the  pur- 
pose and  the  progress  of  humanity. 

Mind,  then,  has  been  the  great  creative  and  progres- 
sive force  in  society.  With  its  progress,  and  because  of 
it,  society  has  progressed.  And  mind  is  progressive 
because  free.  In  can  innovate  on  the  old,  and  initiate 
the  new.  Causation  does  not  rule  in  spirit  as  in  Nature. 
If  it  did,  the  circumstances  of  the  one  would  change  as 
little  and  as  slowly  as  the  condition  of  the  other. 
Necessity  excludes  progress,  unless,  indeed,  it  be 
assumed  as  the  means  by  which  a  Supreme  Mind  fulfils 
its  ends.  But  then  two  things  will  follow,  (i)  the  neces- 
sity will  be  relative,  not  absolute,  in  man,  not  in  God, 


2 o8  COMPARA  TIVE  PS YCHOL OGY  AND 

and  (2)  history  will  be  the  articulation  of  a  great  theo- 
logical idea,  the  revelation  of  a  single  mind.  It  is  not 
without  significance  that  the  theology  which  most  strenu- 
ously denied  human  freedom  most  strenuously  asserted 
the  divine.  Man  was  necessitated  that  the  purposes  of 
God  might  be  assured.  The  infinite  Mind  freely  de- 
creed every  event  and  act  as  necessary  means  to  effect 
His  final  attention,  which  was  the  first  thing  designed, 
though  the  last  executed.  Men  existed  for  the  divine 
ends,  and  could  not  but  fulfil  them. 

aXka  naK  ov  moc  kari  Aibg  vo6v  allidxoio 
ovTE  TTape^eWeiv  aXkov  Oebv  ov(f  dXtcjaai. 

But  on  this  ground  history  may  be  theologically,  can- 
not be  philosophically,  interpreted.  If  the  interpreta- 
tion is  to  be  philosophical,  then  the  reason  and  the 
cause  of  progress  must  be  sought  in  the  domain  of  phi- 
losophy, in  mind.  And  to  deny  its  freedom  is  to  deny 
the  only  rational  cause  of  progress.  Where  the  will  is 
caused  the  motives  make  the  man,  the  man  does  not 
make  the  motives.  As  they  find  him,  they  keep  him, 
leave  him  without  the  power  because  without  the  will  to 
struggle  against  his  destiny.  And  as  the  individuals 
are  the  generations  must  be.  Each  has  its  character 
determined  by  its  predecessor,  and  determines  its  suc- 
cessor. If  "  the  law  of  invariable  causation  holds  true 
of  human  volitions,"  *  revolution  or  reproduction  is  pos- 

*Mr.  Mill,  "Logic,"  vol.  ii.  p.  532.  Mr.  Mill  imagined,  incor- 
rectly, I  think,  that  unless  "  the  doctrine  of  the  causation  of  human 
actions  was  true,"  no  science  of  history  was  possible.  But  he  also 
saw  that,  were  necessity  absolute,  progress  were  inexplicable,  and 
fatalism  inevitable.  So  he  tried  to  lighten  his  doctrine  of  necessity 
in  two  ways,  by  reducing  the  idea  of  causation  to  "4nvariable,  cer- 


TFIE  PHIL  OSOPHY  OF  HIS  TOR  K  2  09 

sible,  but  not  rational  progress.  The  improvement  of 
the  race  means  the  improvement  of  individuals  by  indi- 
vidual effort,  but  such  effort  can  only  be  where  there  is 

tain,  and  unconditional  sequence"  [ib.  p.  423),  and  by  allowing  that 
man  had,  to  a  certain  extent,  power  to  alter  his  character  {ib.  426) 
The  first  qualification  served  him  but  little.  The  causation  was  as 
absolute  as  Mr.  Mill  could  allow  anything  to  be.  If  a  volition  be 
"  the  invariable,  certain,  and  unconditional "  sequent  of  the  strong- 
est motive,  it  can  only  be  because  no  other  sequent  is  possible. 
But  if  no  other  sequent  is  possible,  the  actual  must  be  a  necessary 
sequent.  The  necessity  which  leaves  us  without  choice  is  as  abso- 
lute as  the  necessity  which  should  overpower  it.  As  to  the  second 
qualification,  it  had  been  much  more  important  had  it  been  con- 
sistently developed  and  applied,  for  then  it  would  have  modified 
Mr.  Mill's  position  throughout.  He  says,  "If  they  (the  persons 
who  formed  our  characters)  could  place  us  under  the  influence  of 
certain  circumstances,  we,  in  like  manner,  can  place  ourselves 
under  the  influence  of  other  circumstances.  We  are  exactly  as 
capable  of  making  our  own  character,  if  we  will^  as  others  are  of 
making  it  for  us  "  {ib.  p.  426).  Hardly  as  capable,  for,  according 
to  Mr.  Mill,  the  two  great  factors  of  our  volitions  and  actions  are 
motives  and  the  character  and  disposition.  But  before  the  char- 
actei  becomes  a  factor,  it  is  factus,  and  the  forces  active  in  the 
process  determine  the  product.  If,  then,  we  conceive  the  factor  as 
first  facius,  it  is  clear  that  it  cannot  have,  as  made,  as  much  power 
to  make  or  re-make  itself  as  the  forces  had  which  made  it.  The  ■ 
making  is  too  nearly  done  before  our  wills  can  count  for  anything 
in  the  matter.  But,  again,  the  phrase,  italicized  by  Mr.  Mill,  if  we 
will,  suggests  the  questions.  What  does  will  here  mean  }  Is  it  the 
synonyme  of  wish,  desire,  etc.,  or  of  choice."  Mr.  Mill  explained 
it  as  a  wish  or  feeling  formed  for  us  by  our  experience,  "  experience 
of  the  painful  consequences  of  the  character  we  previously  had ;  or 
by  some  strong  feeling  of  admiration  or  aspiration  accidentally 
aroused."  But  the  wish  or  desire  is  itself  a  sequent,  the  creature 
of  experience,  and  so  falls  under  the  law  of  causation.  To  make 
the  power  to  change  dependent  on  the  wish  so  formed  is  to  deny 
that  the  will  has  any  real  power  at  all.  The  source  of  Mr.  Mill's 
confused  and  imperfect  argument  was  his  false  psychology.  Will 
and  wish,  choice  and  desiie,  radically  differ.    Where  they  are  iden- 

14 


2 1  o  COMPARA  TIVE  PS  YCHOLOG  Y  AND 

the  power  to  create  new  conditions  in  the  heart  of  the 
old.  The  ability  of  man  to  control,  to  command,  and 
to  change  circumstances,  is  the  measure  of  his  ability 
to  advance,  to  create  higher  civilizations  above  the 
lower. 

But,  while  man  is  free,  his  freedom  is  conditional. 
While  motives  do  not  necessitate  our  choices,  they  are 
necessary  to  choice.  A  reasonable  being  can  never  act 
without  a  reason,  but  the  reason  can  only  be  the  con- 
dition and  ground  of  his  action, — he  himself  remains  its 
cause.  He  selects  the  motive  j  the  motive  does  not 
select  him.  His  freedom  is  thus  rational,  not  arbitrary, 
the  freedom  of  a  being  both  intelligent  and  moral.  Then 
the  motives,  which  are  the  occasions  of  his  choices,  are 
ever  inviting  and  urging  him  to  action  ;  and  as  the  occa- 
sions multiply  the  choices  increase.  Circumstances  and 
the  motives  they  supply  have  thus  a  great  part  to  play 
in  human  progress.  Without  them  will  could  as  little 
act  as  they  without  will  could  cause  man  to  improve. 
Now,  motives  are  of  two  kinds,  real  and  ideal, — the  real 
are  the  material,  the  sensuous,  those  created  by  the 
necessity  of  living  and  maintaining  life  ;  the  ideal  are 
the  spiritual,  the  intellectual,  those  formed  by  the  higher 
creations  and  aspirations  of  mind.  In  the  earlier  stages 
of  civilization,  the  real,  but  in  the  later  the  ideal,  are  the 
more  numerous  and  powerful.  The  struggle  with  the 
real  necessities  develop  the  ideal  faculties,  with  their 
appropriate  conditions  ;    and  as  these  are  developed, 

tified,  necessity  is  logically  inevitable.  Our  desires  are  necessitated, 
but  not  our  volitions.  We  may  v^rish  to  modify  our  characters,  and 
yet  not  choose  to  do  it ;  but  we  can  modify  them  if  we  choose.  If 
the  ability  is  made  dependent  on  a  wish  which  is  necessitated,  the 
ability  is  also  necessitated,  and  the  power  conceded  in  word  is  in 
fact  denied. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTOR  V.  2  H 

mind  and  society  grow  more  complex,  humane,  universal. 
Ideal  motives  are  either  those  of  the  heart,  of  the 
imagination,  of  the  intellect,  or  of  the  conscience. 
Those  of  the  heart  come  first.  Home  is  loved.  The 
parent  becomes  dear  to  the  child,  because  the  child  has 
been  dear  to  the  parent.  Brothers  and  sisters  have 
been  as  playmates  sources  of  joy,  and  so  become  objects 
of  affection.  Then  the  place  where  the  home  stands 
grows  dear,  the  less  depending  for  its  being  on  the 
greater.  And  so  the  ideals  of  the  heart  are  developed, 
home  and  country,  father  and  fatherland,  and  whatever 
is  necessary  to  their  being  and  wellbeing,  is  loyally 
loved  and  revered.  Then  the  ideals  of  the  imagination 
are  born.  The  loved  is  the  glorified.  Poetry,  archi- 
tecture, sculpture,  painting,  come  to  exalt  and  embalm 
sacred  and  gladsome  memories.  But  the  intellect  grows 
curious,  inquiring,  asks  after  our  Whence,  our  Whither, 
creates  its  ideal,  the  true,  to  stand  beside  the  good,  and 
the  beautiful,  the  ideals  of  the  heart  and  the  imagina- 
tion. But  the  life  grows  perplexing  as  it  grows  com- 
plex. The  mind  cannot  always  see  clearly  the  path  it 
ought  to  follow ;  and  so  has  to  inquire,  What  is  the 
dutiful,  the  right  ?  And  the  answer  is  the  ideal  of  the 
conscience,  virtue,  righteousness.  But  though  thus  dis- 
tinguished in  thought,  they  blend  in  reality.  Patriot- 
ism, art,  philosophy,  religion,  are  objects  the  mind  can 
study  apart,  but  that  subtly  mingle  in  the  minds  that 
give  them  being  and  feel  their  influence.  Religion  pene- 
trates patriotism,  art,  and  philosophy ;  and  art  exalts 
the  god  while  it  glorifies  the  hero.  Once  his  ideals 
have  been  created,  man  has  become  conscious  mind, 
and  discovered  his  affinities  with  the  imperishable  and 
universal,  the  spiritual  and  the  divine. 


2 1 2  COMPARA  TIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  AND 

But  these  two  elements,  freedom  and  the  influence  of 
ideals,  explain  one  of  the  mightiest  dynamic  forces  in 
society,  the  great  man.  The  one  explains  his  personal- 
ity, the  other  his  influence.  Human  freedom  makes  the 
great  man  possible  ;  the  ideals  enable  him  to  become 
an  active  and  ubiquitous  power.  By  his  voluntary 
energy  he  can  assert  his  individuality,  control  and  change 
circumstances  ;  by  the  forms  his  activity  assumes  he 
can  shape  or  guide  minds  that  are  or  are  to  be.  Hero- 
worship  is  but  a  bad  species  of  idolatry,  heroes  not  being 
made  for  worship,  but  for  the  works  that  make  and  mark 
the  ages.  Persons  are  powers  ;  great  personalities  are 
great  creators.  The  lawgiver,  like  Moses  or  Solon, 
turns  a  struggling  tribe  or  straggling  city  into  a  state, 
educes  and  educates  the  public  conscience,  lives  through- 
out the  centuries  an  active  ethical  and  political  power. 
The  poet,  like  Homer  or  Chaucer,  is  not  only  the  maker 
of  a  poem,  but  the  father  of  a  literature,  influencing  its 
whole  course.  The  sculptor  like  Pheidias,  or  the 
painter  like  Raphael,  wins  by  his  genius  dominion  over 
the  ages,  creates  not  only  objects  of  beauty,  but  ideals 
that  form  artists,  preserve,  develop,  and  perfect  art. 
Individuals  like  Alexander  or  Caesar  have  at  critical 
moments  determined  the  course  of  history.  Our  re- 
ligions mostly  run  back  into  persons ;  those  with  the 
most  distinctly  personal  source  are  the  most  powerful 
Christianity  had  been  impossible  without  Christ,  and 
without  Him  could  not  live  a  single  day.  Buddhism  is 
built  on  Buddha,  owes  to  him  its  missionary  successes 
and  its  ethical  excellences.  Islam  had  never  been  but 
for  Mahomet,  and  to  this  day  the  Prophet  is  as  neces- 
sary to  the  faith  as  his  God.  Without  Confucius, 
China  had  been  without  a  native  religion  j    and  the 


THE  PHIL  0 SOPHY  OF  HIS  TOR  Y.  213 

Parsee  maintains  a  worship  as  ancient  as  Zoroaster. 
The  world's  great  forces  have  thus  been  its  great  men. 
And  they  were  great  because  they  possessed,  in  the 
highest  degree,  free  and  creative  activities.  They  may 
have  incarnated  what  is  called  the  spirit  of  their  age 
or  nation,  but  they  did  much  more,  became  creators  of 
a  new  order,  did  not  remain  simply  creatures  of  the  old. 
Historical  analysis  may  discover  many  circumstances 
that  constituted  their  opportunity,  but  cannot  discover 
the  circumstances  that  constituted  their  greatness.  They 
were  great  by  virtue  of  the  indefeasible  right  given  by 
genius,  supreme  because  free,  power  sufficient  to  a  work 
of  everlasting  significance.  But  to  be  so  great  is  to 
have  a  will,  a  cause,  not  caused,  the  master,  not  the 
child,  of  circumstances.* 

Comparative  Psychology,  then  regards  the  history  of 
man  as  the  history  of  mind,  seeks  by  a  Science  of  Mind 
to  lay  the  basis  for  a  Science  of  History.  But  it  does 
not  study  the  individual  mind  by  itself  and  alone.  That 
is  the  work  of  Psychology  proper.  Comparative  Psy- 
chology is  the  psychology  of  peoples.  Its  aim  is  to 
explain  the  action  of  mind  in  the  mass,  to  discover  the 
distinctive  mental  qualities  of  different  or  related 
peoples,  their  rise,  their  causes,  the  laws  and  conditions 

*  Mr.  Mill  has  ('*  Logic,"  vol.  ii.  pp.  537  ff.)  a  very  eloquent 
paragraph  on  the  influence  of  great  men  on  social  progress.  His 
opinions  on  the  matter  are  in  some  respects  very  just,  but  involve 
more  than  he  allowed  to  appear.  He  thinks  "  the  volitions  of  ex- 
ceptional persons  may  be  indispensable  links  in  the  chain  of  causa- 
tion by  which  even  the  general  causes  produce  their  effects."  But 
what  of  the  "  exceptional  persons  "  themselves.  They  are  "  ex- 
ceptional "  by  virtue  of  their  volitions ;  but  how  can  the  law  of 
"  invariable,  certain  and  unconditional  sequence "  explain  so  ex- 
traordinary a  result .? 


2 1 4  COMPARA  TIVE  PS YCHOLOG  V  AND 

of  their  development,  their  influence  on  society  and 
history,  national  and  universal.  It  does  not  seek  to 
supersede  the  science  of  the  individual  mind,  but  assumes 
it,  builds  on  its  data,  and  applies  its  principles.  Mind 
is  everywhere  akin,  but  kindship  does  not  exclude 
difference.  Psychology  proper  is  concerned  with  what 
is  essential,  mind  in  the  abstract,  the  universal,  as  it 
were,  in  the  individual ;  but  Comparative  Psychology  is 
concerned  with  what  seems  accidental,  mind  in  the 
concrete,  acting  under  the  influence  of  place  and  time 
within  a  state  or  society,  and  embodying  its  action  in 
works  that  are  not  so  much  individual  as  common  and 
collective. 

The  science  so  named  has  thus  a  province,  distinct, 
well  defined,  vast.  It  is  a  province,  too  full  of  the  most 
promising  results.  Until  it  be  annexed  to  that  of 
Psychology  proper  the  science  of  mind  must  remain 
incomplete.  Every  man  is  not  simply  an  individual, 
but  a  conscious  and  active  atom  in  an  immense  organ- 
ism. He  is  born  into  a  society  which  gives  to  him  be- 
fore he  can  give  to  it ;  and  its  gifts  are  more  than 
educative  processes,  are  faculties  that  can  be  educated. 
A  nation  is  an  organic,  not  an  artificial,  unity,  has  a 
sort  of  corporate  being.  Inherited  capacities  which 
spring  from  a  common  descent,  collective  tendencies 
which  flow  from  kindred  natures  formed  under  the  same 
institutions,  and  existing  under  similar  physical  and 
geographical  conditions,  give  to  a  homogeneous  people 
a  species  of  colossal  individuality.  The  great  men  it 
produces  are,  as  a  rule,  great  after  the  distinctive  genius 
of  therr  race.  The  priest  is  characteristic  of  some 
nations,  the  soldier  of  others.  In  one  land  the  prophet, 
in  another  the  poet,  is  the  great  man.     The  Greeks  had 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY 


215 


their  Homer,  the  Hebrews  their  Moses.  The  Egyptians 
built  temples,  the  Romans  amphitheatres.  The  Phoen- 
icians were  merchants,  the  Assyrians  conquerors.  And 
this  distinctive  genius  is  ever  and  again  concentrated  in 
man  or  event,  and  thus  quickened  and  sent  forward  with 
augmented  volume  in  a  deepened  channel. 

Now,  this  unity  of  character  in  a  nation  is  the  result 
of  unity  of  mind,  mental  qualities  possessed  and  mental 
processes  performed  in  common.  Where  many  minds 
live  a  kind  of  corporate  existence  they  are  certain  to 
accomplish  much  that  is  at  once  individual  and  collec- 
tive, work  carried  on  by  the  units,  but  instituted  and 
completed  by  the  mass.  Every  day  actions  are  per- 
formed by  the  whole,  because  by  each  of  the  conscious 
and  voluntary  persons  composing  it ;  yet,  though  the 
persons  are  conscious  and  voluntary,  the  products  of 
their  collective  actions  are  seldom  the  fruits  of  counsel 
and  design.  Indeed  the  grandest  structures  of  the 
world  are  structures  that,  like  our  languages  and  mytho- 
logies, have  been  built  by  builders  that  did  not  know 
they  were  building,  or  the  glory  of  their  work.  And 
though  no  master  mind  conceived  the  design  and  se- 
cured unity  in  the  workers  who  toiled  at  the  strong 
foundation,  or  massive  pillars,  or  stately  dome,  or  taper- 
ing spire,  or  delicate  tracery,  yet  the  harmony  has  been 
more  perfect  than  the  genius  of  a  Pheidias  could  give 
to  the  sculptures  of  the  Parthenon,  or  an  Angelo  to  St 
Peter's.  Humanity  has  been  the  great  poet,  the  uncon- 
scious maker,  and  the  creations  of  her  blind  Muse  are 
more  splendid  than  any  epic,  lyric,  or  tragedy,  made  by 
the  consciously  creative  effort  of  "fancy's  sweetest 
child,"  The  undesigned  is  not  always  the  accidental  ; 
where  there  is  unity  of  mind  evoked  and  exercised  by 


2 1 6  COMPARA  TIVE  PS  YCHOL  OGY  AND 

common  needs,  interests,  associations,  and  aims,  there 
can  hardly  fail  to  be  unity  in  its  common  work. 

Now,  these  unconscious  creations  of  the  collective 
mind  best  reveal  its  distinctive  qualities.  What  results 
from  the  voluntary  efforts  of  so  many  conscious  persons 
unconsciously  combining  to  a  common  end,  is  certain  to 
exhibit,  in  clear  and  distinct  lines,  their  deepest  idiosyn- 
crasies, the  finest  aptitudes  and  capabilities  of  their 
spirit.  Hence  Comparative  Psychology,  in  seeking  to . 
know  the  mind  of  a  people,  must  study  its  most  com- 
mon, though,  perhaps,  least  consciously  designed,  psy- 
chical creations.  These  ^enable  it  to  regard  the  people 
as  a  unit,  a  subject  possessed  of  qualities  that  can  be 
analyzed  and  described.*  Language  becomes  to  it 
embodied  spirit,  externalized  and  eternalized  thought, 
the  X6yo<;  r,po<popf/.uq  which  shows  the  Xoyoq  i>dtdOsTo<; 
either  potent  and  well-proportioned,  able  by  delicate 
inflexional  arts  to  weave  its  ideas  into  forms  at  once 
musical  and  variously  significant  and  suggestive,  or 
impotent  and  ill-balanced,  able  only  to  express  its  mind 
in  rugged  and  unjointed  .speech.  In  mythology  our 
science  sees  how  a  people,  while  still  in  its  wondering 
and  imaginative  childhood,  conceived  Nature  and  man, 
articulated  its  thoughts  of  this  mysterious,  changing,  yet 
permanent,  universe,  of  the  rising  and  the  setting  sun, 
of  the  living  air,  of  the  round  ocean,  now  sleeping  in 
calm  radiance,  now  breaking  into  multitudinous  laughter, 

*  "  Zeitschrift  fiir  Volkerpsychologie  und  Sprachwissenchaft," 
vol.  i.  p.  28.  In  this  Journal  there  are  several  papers  of  great 
worth  to  the  comparative  psychologist.  While  in  some  respects 
fundamentally  differing  from  the  editors,  Professors  Lazarus  and 
Steinthal,  I  wish  to  record  in  a  general  way  my  obligations  to  their 
Journal,  and  especially  their  own  contributions  to  it. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  217 

now  waking  into  thundrous  music,  and  how  those  crude 
but  glorious  fancies  were  slowly  sublimated  into  the 
beautiful  forms  of  conscious  poetry  and  the  abstract 
theories  of  metaphysics.  But  these  undesigned,  yet  not 
accidental,  creations,  are  not  alone  incorporative  of  the 
collective  mind ;  it  exists  no  less  in  cases  where  the 
mental  action  may  seem  more  conscious  and  individual. 
The  polity  which  guards  and  defines  the  idea  of  the 
state  and  the  person,  his  rights  and  his  duties  ;  the  art 
which  in  its  massive  or  graceful,  beautiful  or  hideous 
forms  incarnates  the  national  taste  ;  the  industries  by 
which  the  people  lives,  and  which  it  either  honors  or 
despises  ;  the  manners  and  customs  which  declare  its 
moral  judgments  and  temper ;  the  family  life,  the  au- 
thority conferred  on  the  husband,  the  place  conceded 
to  the  wife  ;  great  personalities,  the  representative  men 
that  are  in  thought  and  action  the  vehicles  of  its  govern- 
ing ideas, — are  all  so  many  points  through  which  we  can 
approach  our  object — mind  as  it  lives  and  acts  in  a 
nation  or  people.  Only  as  the  object  is  known  can  it 
be  so  studied  as  to  be  interpreted. 

The  object  of  Comparative  is  thus  much  more  complex 
and  vast  than  that  of  simple  Psychology ;  and  its  me- 
thods are  necessarily  more  indirect  and  intricate.  It 
cannot  interrogate  consciousness,  can  only  discover  the 
mental  qualities  of  its  object  by  an  analysis  of  its  men- 
tal products.  Its  method  has  to  be  both  historical  and 
comparative.  As  historical  it  seeks  to  know  the  people, 
its  institutions,  arts,  beliefs,  speculations  in  philosophy 
and  achievements  in  literature.  As  comparative,  it 
examines  the  similarities  and  dissimilarities  of  different 
peoples,  and  of  the  same  people  at  the  various  stages  of 
its  development  and  decay.     It  must  be  historical  to  get 


2 1 8  COMPARA TIVE  PS YCHOL OGY  AND 

face  to  face  with  the  facts,  and  must  be  comparative  to 
discover  their  causes,  meaning  and  tendency.  Society 
evolves  with  the  evolution  of  mind,  and  unless  the  evo* 
lution  can  be  historically  traced  it  cannot  be  scientific- 
ally explained.  Existing  peoples,  savage  as  little  as 
civilized,  can  be  used  as  types  or  models  of  primitive. 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  primitive  man,  physical,  emo- 
tional, intellectual,  is  a  purely  imaginary  being.  He  is 
built  up  by  an  inductive,  but  built  upon  a  deductive, 
process.  His  deduction  is  by  no  means  unassailable 
either  as  to  principles  or  method,  but  we  are  not  con- 
cerned with  it  meanwhile,  only  with  the  induction.  And 
how  does  it  proceed  ?  Whence  come  the  facts  inducted  ? 
Mr.  Spencer  says,*  "  We  must  be  content  to  fill  out  our 
general  conception  of  primitive  man,  so  far  as  we  may, 
by  studying  those  existing  races  of  men,  which,  as 
judged  by  their  physical  characters  and  their  imple- 
ments, approach  most  nearly  to  primitive  man."  And 
as  these  races  present  him  with  a  most  bewildering 
multitude  of  differences,  he  has  to  select  from  these  the 
features  he  considers  primitive.  And  what  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  selection  ?  "  To  conceive  the  primitive  man  as 
he  existed  when  social  aggregation  commenced,  we 
must  generalize  as  well  as  we  can  this  entangled  and 
partially  conflicting  evidence  (of  the  differences  between 
the  various  savage  races)  ;  led  mainly  by  the  traits  com- 
mon to  the  very  lowest,  and  finding  what  guidance  we 
may  in  the  a  priori  conclusions  set  down  above."t 

Now,  the  method  is  bad,  most  unscientific,  and  the 
principle  of  selection  is  worse.  The  savage  races  are 
as  old  as  the  civilized,  as  distant,  therefore,  from  primi- 

♦  "  Principles  of  Sociology,"  p.  33.  t  lb.,  p.  62. 


THE  PHIL  OS  0  PHY  OF  HIS  TOP  Y.  219 

tlve  man.  Change,  too,  has  been  as  busy  in  them  as  in 
us — perhaps,  busier.  Their  customs  are  less  persistent, 
their  memories  shorter,  their  past  far  less  extended  and 
powerful.  The  most  distinctive  features  of  the  primi- 
tive man  are  exactly  those  least  discoverable  in  the 
savage.  His  energy,  his  resolution,  his  inventiveness, 
his  capacity  for  progress  and  discovery.  The  imple- 
ments may  be  the  same,  but  the  skill  is  not.  The  physi- 
cal characters  may  be  alike,  but  what  of  the  mental  ? 
If  alike,  how  does  the  savage,  after  so  many  ages,  hap- 
pen to  be  savage,  while  we  are  civilized  ?  Then,  why 
select  the  traits  common  to  the  very  lowest  as  the  most 
primitive  ?  Do  the  inferior  members  of  a  species  best 
preserve  the  features  of  the  primitive  type  ?  Does  pal- 
aeontology "  fill  out  its  conception  "  of  an  extinct  plant 
or  animal  by  combining  the  traits  common  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  lowest  and  most  degenerate  species  within 
the  genus  to  which  it  belonged  ?  Palaeontology  is  one 
thing  ;  zoology  or  botany  another.  If  the  development 
of  life  on  the  earth  is  to  be  studied,  it  must  be  through 
the  once  living  forms  preserved  in  its  successive  strata, 
not  through  the  lowest  and  most  degenerate  forms  of 
vegetable  and  animal  life  now  on  its  surface.  So,  if 
the  growth  of  mind  and  the  progress  of  man  are  to  be 
understood,  it  must  be  by  the  method  of  palaeontology 
— the  comparative  study  of  the  peoples  in  the  past  whc 
have  made  our  present. 

Such  being  the  method  of  Comparative  Psychology, 
it  is  evident  that  it  must  stand  in  the  most  intimate  re- 
lations to  the  other  Comparative  Sciences  concerned 
with  the  history  of  man.  Comparative  Philology  seeks 
to  discover  the  similarities  and  dissimilarities  of  cognate 
languages,  to  find  out  the  words  or  roots  of  the  mother 


220  COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  AND 

tongue,  to  determine  the  laws  of  literal  and  structural 
chans^e  in  the  several  dialects,  so  to  analyze  speech  into 
its  primitive  elements  as  to  exhibit  the  principles  of  its 
growth  and  decay:  Comparative  Mythology  brings  to- 
gether the  earliest  lore  and  legends  of  related  families, 
ascertains  their  coincidences  and  differences,  aims  at 
discovering  their  common  element,  and  determin- 
ing by  what  process  primitive  belief  grew  into  such 
varied  and  fantastic  forms.  Comparative  Politics,  to 
adopt  Mr.  Freeman's  name,  attempts  to  find  out  the 
rudimentary  social  organism  of  related  peoples,  and  to 
trace  thence  the  evolution  of  the  many  cognate  but  most 
divergent  politics.  Comparative  Jurisprudence,  in  Sir 
Henry  Maine's  sense,  studies  the  most  ancient  laws  of 
kindred  peoples,  and  the  village  communities  of  east  and 
west,  so  as  to  discover  the  earlier  modes  in  which  the 
individual,  the  family,  and  the  village  or  state,  were  re- 
lated to  each  other,  how  property  was  held,  the  idea  of 
legal  right  arose,  and  law  emerged.  Now,  Comparative 
Psychology  employs  the  material  supplied  by  these 
Comparative  Sciences,  using,  too,  though  cautiously, 
such  cognate  sources  as  ethnography  and  anthropology, 
to  get  as  near  as  possible  to  primaeval  man,  to  watch 
the  origin  of  his  ideas,  their  relation  to,  their  action  on 
each  other  and  on  him,  their  growth,  transmutation,  dis- 
solution, and  re-combination  under  the  influences  exer- 
cised by  changes  of  place,  mode  of  life  and  social  con- 
stitution. For  peoples  may  not  only  vary  from  the 
original  family  type,  but  may  branch  into  nations  that 
move  along  the  most  divergent  lines.  Slips  from  the 
same  stock  may,  under  dissimilar  conditions,  grow  into 
most  dissimilar  trees.  The  Hindu  carried  into  India, 
the  Teuton  brought  into  Western  Europe,  similar  types 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTOR  V.  2 2 1 

of  the  social  state ;  but  in  India  a  caste  system,  iron, 
inflexible,  hateful,  has  grown  up,  while  in  Western  Eu- 
rope society  allows  freedom  of  intercourse,  an  impercep- 
tible blending  of  class  into  class,  accords  equal  rights 
to  citizens,  equal  worth  to  men.  The  Greek  and  the 
Slav  possibly  entered  Europe  together,  though  they  soon 
parted,  the  one  turning  his  face  to  the  sunny  south  and 
its  glorious  sea,  the  other  to  the  cold  and  barren  north ; 
but  while  the  Greek  centuries  since  began  and  ended 
the  most  joyous,  brightest  and  briefest  career  any  people 
has  known,  the  Slav  is  only  now  waking  from  his  long 
sleep  into  a  vast  and  terrible  power.  The  warlike  As- 
syrian and  the  commercial  Phoenician,  the  nomadic 
Arab,  the  wandering  child  of  the  desert,  and  the  modern 
Jew,  truest  child  of  the  exchange,  are  sons  of  a  common 
father,  and  once  dwelt  in  a  common  tent.  Now,  why 
these  differences  ?  What  created  these  varieties  of  mind 
and  history  ?  And  what  worth  have  they  possessed,  do 
they  still  possess,  for  the  world  ?  If  the  comparative 
study  of  mind  and  its  creations  can  bring  us  within 
sight  of  the  answer  to  these  questions,  it  will  lead  us 
nearer  the  immediate  presence  of  the  old  and  invincible 
problems,    What  is  the  meaning  of  man,  of  history  ? 

Whence,  O  Heaven?  Whither?  Does  law  or  chance, 
order  or  accident,  mind  or  mechanism,  rule  in  the  world  ? 
How  do  the  earliest  men  and  nations  stand  related  to 
the  latest  ?  Did  they  come  aimless,  and  vanish  track- 
less ?  or  do  they  survive  in  us,  and  find  there  the  reward 
of  their  works  ? 

Many  questions  in  science  and  philosophy  lie  at  this 
moment  hot  beneath  the  feet.  But  we  must  pass  over 
the  burning  and  blistering  ground  as  softly  and  silently 
as  posssible.     We  must  be  innocently  oblivious  that — 


i22  COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  AND 

eTTi  edve'  ayeipero  jivpia  veKpuv 
7]XV  decTTsairi, 

and  without  word  or  nod  of  recognition,  pass  the  ghosts 
of  Kant  and  Herder,  Buckle  and  Comte,  Schelling  and 
Hegel,  Cousin  and  Guizot,  Krause  and  Bunsen,  fearful 
lest  by  the  smell  or  taste  of  the  blood  sure  to  be  shed  in 
controversy  they  should  grow  so  substantial  as  to  forbid 
further  search.  Enough  to  say,  it  is  here  assumed  that 
no  Philosophy  of  History  is  possible  without  a  patient 
and  sufficient  study  of  the  facts  and  phenomena  of  mind, 
individual  and  collective.  Speculation  must  build  on 
the  solid  rock  of  realit}''  if  it  is  to  build  into  heaven  and 
for  eternity.  Man  must  be  known  before  his  being  can 
be  understood,  or  the  laws  that  have  governed  his  devel- 
opment formulated.  So  far  as  the  Philosopher  of  His- 
tory seeks  to  explain  the  becoming  of  civilization,  or 
the  past  of  men,  Comparative  Psychology  helps  it  in 
two  ways,  by  discovering  the  causes  and  conditions  that 
created  the  distinct  civilizations  in  the  various  ages  and 
countries  of  the  world  ;  and  by  supplying  the  data  that 
can  determine  the  influence  they  respectively  exercised 
on  the  progress  of  humanity,  the  value,  number  and 
quality  of  the  elements  they  severally  contribute  to  the 
civilization,  modern  and  permanent.  For  the  nation 
exists  for  the  race,  as  the  individual  for  the  nation. 
The  best  work  of  the  unit  is  universal,  lives  longer  and 
does  more  than  its  author  designed.  Genius,  when  it 
speaks  the  true  in  forms  that  are  beautiful,  speaks  not 
to  its  own  age  and  people  simply,  but  to  all  peoples 
and  times.  And  the  nation  that  achieves  a  victory  over 
barbarism,  *or  ignorance,  or  wrong  achieves  it  for  the 
world.  In  solving  the  great  problem  humanity  has  been 
set  to  work  out,  every  people  with  a  history  has  had  a 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  223 

share.  None  have  lived  or  died  in  vain.  If,  indeed,  in 
in  the  life  of  humanity,  as  in  our  competitive  examina- 
tions, many  had  fought,  but  only  one  had  won,  what  should 
we  say  ?  That  the  unsuccessful  had  been  useless  com- 
petitors ?  or  that  it  was  better  for  them  to  fight  and 
lose  than  never  to  win  the  skill  and  weapons  necessary 
for  the  contest  ?  If  the  many,  whose  non-success  was  no 
failure,  not  only  contributed  to  the  magnificence  of  the 
battle  and  the  splendor  of  the  victory,  but  made  them- 
selves in  the  struggle  better  then  they  otherwise  could 
have  been,,  shall  we  not  say  that  as  their  being  was  good 
the  conflict  that  so  served  it  was  not  ill  ?  And  here 
the  victory  belongs  to  the  many,  not  to  the  one.  What- 
ever principle  of  order  a  people  conquers,  the  conquest 
becomes  in  the  long  run  that  of  the  race.  If  history 
means  progress,  there  has  been  in  it,  perhaps,  many 
blunders,  and  follies,  and  crimes,  but  yet,  in  spite  of  all, 
victory  for  humanity.  Civilization  as  it  rises  universa- 
lizes, and  as  it  becomes  universal  unifies  man,  lifts  the 
race  to  a  higher  level.  When  we  look  to  the  past  man's 
progress  seems  marked  only  by  the  graveyard,  buried 
cities,  fallen  empires,  civilizations  decayed  and  dead. 
Of  once  wise  and  busy  Egypt  only  broken  water-cour- 
ses, imperishable  pyramids,  waste  temples  and  tombs 
survive.  On  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  and  her  sister 
stream,  where  once  famed  armies  marched,  are  now 
only  the  shapeless  and  melancholy  mounds,  which  have 
been  made  but  of  late  to  tell  the  stor}''  of  the  splendor 
and  decadence  of  the  empires  whose  sites  they  mark. 
Phoenicia,  once  Queen  of  the  seas,  is  desolate  and  her 
industrial  commercial,  and  colonizing  genius,  gone  down 
for  ever.  Greece,  the  beautiful,  the  land  that  sanctified 
by  idealizing  humanity  ;  Rome,  the  once  universal  Mis- 


224 


COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  AND 


tress,  the  once  Eternal  City,  of  the  world,  are  but  names, 
loved,  visitedj  studied  for  the  memories  they  preserve, 
the  shadows  of  the  glorious  past  that  sleep  in  their  val- 
leys and  on  their  hills.  Does  it  not  seem  as  if  Nature, 
as  careless  of  men  and  peoples  as  of  "  the  fifty  seeds," 
of  which 

"  She  brings  but  one  to  bear," 

cried  to  us  from  the  past, 

"  I  care  for  nothing,  all  shall  go  "  ?     • 

But  the  carelessness  is  only  in  our  eyes,  not  in  her  hands 
or  heart.  The  less  perfect  dies  that  the  more  perfect  may 
live.  In  man,  as  in  nature,  except  the  one  die,  it  abideth 
alone  ;  if  it  die,  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit.  The  con- 
quests of  humanity  are  permanent.  As  the  mother-speech 
of  our  family  died  that  her  daughters  might  be  born,  died 
that  she  might  impart  herself  equally  to  each,  and  de- 
scend into  her  remotest  posterity,  so  the  ancient  civili- 
zations died,  that  their  ideal  elements,  universalized  and 
immortalized,  might  build  up  and  be  built  into  the 
modern.  The  narrow  spirit  that  in  ancient  Hellas 
divided  men  into  Greeks  and  barbarians  perished,  but 
her  bright  genius  lives  and  speaks  in  the  language  and 
art,  the  poetry  and  philosophy  that  must  be  beautiful 
for  evermore.  The  ambition,  the  brutal  pleasures,  the 
exhausting  exactions  of  Rome  are  buried  under  the 
ruins  of  her  cities  ;  but  the  sense  of  law,  of  order,  of 
unity,  she  created  has  passed  from  expediency  and 
policy  into  the  very  blood  of  our  highest  religious  and 
philosophical  thought.  So  men  die  that  man  may  live  ; 
peoples  perish  that  humanity  may  endure. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  225 


II. 

Our  discussion  has  tended  to  show  the  necessit}'  of 
Comparative  Psychology  to  the  Philosophy  of  History. 
Our  purpose  can  now  be  better  served  by  an  attempt  to 
apply  to  history  its  principles  and  method.  All  that  is 
possible  is  to  present  the  subject  in  hurried  and  imper- 
fect outline,  but  the  outline  may  be  meanwhile  more 
significant  than  a  more  abstract  and  abstruse  discussion. 

What  is  intended  is,  by  the  analysis  and  exhibition,  in 
forms  more  or  less  concrete,  of  their  psychical  qualities 
and  capacities,  to  indicate  the  place  and  work  in  univer- 
sal history  of  two  great  races,  the  Indo-European  and 
Semitic.  These  qualities  and  capacities  fitted  each  of 
the  races  for  the  part  it  has  played  in  the  development 
of  man.  Ever  modifying,  yet  ever  modified  by,  the  rise 
of  new  conditions  or  changes  in  the  old,  weakened,  or 
intensified  by  the  generation  of  new  forces,  intellectual 
and  religious,  or  the  formation  of  new  relations,  social 
and  political,  they  have  never  failed,  at  decisive  mo- 
ments, to  embody  themselves  in  distinctive  acts,  events, 
or  works.  The  races  form,  therefore,  a  field  where 
Comparative  Psychology  can  be  well  enough  tested 
alike  as  to  principles,  method,  and  results. 

The  Indo-European  and  Semitic  races  are  two  distinct 
families  that  have  branched  into  many  nations,  and 
spread  over  a  great  portion  of  the  earth's  surface.  The 
first  extends  north-westward  from  India,  runs  through 
Persia  into  Europe,  includes  almost  all  its  peoples,  ex- 
cludes only  such  early  Europeans  as  the  Basques  in  the 
south-west,  the  Lapps  and  Finns  in  the  north,  and  such 
recent  invaders  as  the  Huns  and  the  Turks  in  the  east 

15 


226  COMPARA  TIVE  PS YCHOLOG Y  AND 

The  second  race  had  its  ancient  homes  in  the  Mesopota- 
mian  valley,  Syria,  Canaan,  Arabia,  Ethiopia,  and  has 
more  than  once  formed  a  fringe,  here  and  there  indeed 
pierced  and  patched  by  alien  peoples,  along  the  southern 
seaboard  of  the  Mediterranean  from  Syria  to  the 
Atlantic.  It  embraces  such  peoples,  ancient  and  modern 
as  the  Assyrians,  the  Phoenicians,  the  Hebrews,  and  the 
Arabians.  Each  family  has  its  unity  sufficiently  well 
established.  Evidence  of  it  need  not  be  here  adduced. 
It  is  conclusive  enough  to  warrant  us  in  assuming  that 
the  various  branches  of  the  above  races  are  respectively 
branches  of  a  common  stock. 

The  names  Indo-European  and  Semitic  are  unfortu- 
nately hopelessly  incorrect.  The  first  is  geographical, 
the  second  genealogical,  and  neither  is  sufficiently  either 
descriptive  or  comprehensive.  The  peoples  named  Indo- 
European  have  long  since  overflowed  the  limits  of  both 
India  and  Europe,  and  nations,  like  the  Phoenician, 
though  not  reckoned  sons  of  Sem,  are  yet  Semitic. 
Indo-Germanic  and  Aiyan  are  common  but  improper 
equivalents  of  Indo-European.  Aryan  is  the  proper 
name  of  the  united  Hindu  and  Iranian  branches,  and 
ought  to  be  so  limited  and  applied ;  Indo-Germanic 
leaves  out  peoples  so  important  as  the  Slavs  and  Gauls, 
Italians  and  Greeks.  Syro-Arabian  has  been  proposed 
as  a  substitute  for  Semitic,  but  as  it  does  not  include 
certain  main  and  subordinate  branches,  especially  in 
Africa,  it  would  be  as  incorrect  as  the  term  it  seeks  to 
supersede.  Change  is  now,  perhaps,  hardly  possible  j 
the  wrong  must  here  be  allowed  to  do  the  office  of  the 
right. 

These  races  have  furnished  the  most  civilized  and 
the  most  civilizing  peoples  of  history.     It  is  hardly  too 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  227 

much  to  say  that  their  history  is  the  higher  history  of 
of  humanity.  Were  they  subtracted,  it  would  be  the 
play  without  either  Hamlet  or  Ophelia.  They  give  to 
it  unity,  progress,  purpose.  Yet  they  stand  related  to 
each  other  as  contrasts,  often  conflicting,  but  always 
complemental,  helping  humanity  onward  by  the  blend- 
ing of  their  opposites,  creating  institutions  and  events, 
ideas  and  influences,  that,  imperfect  in  their  isolation 
and  independence,  become  by  contact  and  combination 
increasingly  perfect.  The  Semite  has  excelled  as  the 
creator  of  great  propulsive  forces,  which  he  has  relieved 
in  crude  but  powerful  forms ;  the  Indo-European  has 
been  pre-eminent  in  the  genius  that  could  appropriate 
the  new  without  losing  the  old,  that  could  so  interweave 
varied  and  dissimilar  elements  in  his  personal  and  social 
life,  as  to  give  increasing  variety  and  progress  to  both. 
To  the  Semite  we  owe  the  creation  of  commerce  and 
maritime  navigation,  the  diffusion  of  the  alphabet,  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  the  Hebrew  religion,  Christianity, 
the  Mahommedanism  that  through  the  Moors  in  the 
West  and  the  Turks  in  the  East,  did  so  much  to  create 
the  dawn  that  has  broken  into  our  modern  day ;  to  the 
Indo-European  we  owe  the  perfecting  and  permanence 
of  the  creative  forces  and  ideas  which  had  found  in 
these  great  movements  their  vehicles,  their  victorious 
working  out  in  all  the  regions  of  individual  and  collec- 
tive life,  in  science  and  art,  industry  and  commerce, 
polity  and  ethics,  religion  and  philosophy.  The  Se- 
mite, unprogressive,  though  inventive,  has  soon  exhaust- 
ed his  discovery,  and  the  enthusiasm  it  had  awakened, 
but  the  Indo-European  has  made  his  inventions  and 
acquisitions  but  deepen  his  resources,  and  accelerate 
the  march  of  his  mind.     The  Semite  has  been  intense, 


228  COMPARA  TIVE  PSYCHOLOG  V  AND 

but  narrow,  exclusive,  limited  in  the  range  of  his  sym- 
pathies, violently  hostile  to  every  foreign  influence  that 
did  not  appeal  to  them  ;  but  the  Indo-European,  while 
of  a  stronger,  has  been  of  a  sweeter  and  purer  spirit, 
susceptible,  assimilative,  with  force  enough  to  naturalize 
and  govern  aliens  coming  to  him  from  many  lands. 
The  great  Semitic  nations  have  been  great  along  single 
lines,  excelling  in  one  thing,  in  commerce,  like  the  Phoe 
nicians,  religion,  like  the  Hebrews,  war,  like  the  Arabs  ; 
but  the  great  Indo-European  peoples  have  excelled  in 
many  lines,  in  war  and  art,  in  thought  and  action,  in  re- 
ligion and  industries.  These  differences  are  not  imag- 
inary, but  real,  stand  expressed  in  the  achievements  and 
fortunes  of  the  two  races.  Minds  produce  fruit  each 
after  its  kind,  and  kind  is  here  co-extensive  with  kin. 

The  peculiar  temptation  of  the  comparative  psycho- 
logist is  to  treat  races  like  individuals,  draw  their  char- 
acters with  too  great  breadth  of  line,  strength  of  color, 
minuteness  of  detail.*     Peoples  are  not  persons.     The 


*  It  is  as  easy  to  exaggerate  as  to  ignore  racial  peculiarities. 
Imaginary  portraits  are  easily  drawn,  especially  when  the  draughts- 
man has  an  imagination  that  commands  his  scholarship.  M. 
Renan  has  painted  the  characteristic  features  of  the  two  races  in 
great  detail,  with  remarkable  brilliancy  of  color,  skill  in  grouping, 
sharpness  of  line  and  figure  (Histoire  Gener.  et  Syst.  Comp.  des 
Langues  Semitiques,"  liv.  i.  ch.  i. ;  liv.  v.  ch.  ii.  §  vi.  Also  "  Nou- 
vel.  Considerations  sur  le  Caractere  Gener.  des  Peup.  Semit.," 
"Journal  Asiat.,"  xiii.  5th  series,  pp.  214-282;  417-460).  But  the 
picture  is  one  of  the  imagination,  represents  only  the  brilliant 
scholar's  own  ideal ;  and  serves  first  as  a  vivid  introduction,  next 
as  a  graphic  conclusion  to  a  grave  philological  work.  The  late 
Professor  Lassen,  of  Bonn,  has  sketched  the  races  with  much 
greater  caution,  truth,  and  masterliness,  though  at  much  shorter 
length.      ("  Indis.  Alterthumsk.,"  vol.  i.  pp.  494-497»  2nd  ed.) 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  229 

most  outstanding  branches  of  the  two  races  may  be  so 
interlaced  as  to  be  branches  common  to  both,  peculiar 
to  neither ;  but  interwound  branches  do  not  make  two 
trunks  one  tree,  especially  where  the  trees  differ  as  do 
the  oak  and  the  birch.  Culture  can  never  smooth  into 
similarity  minds  so  unlike  as  those  of  Shakspere  and 
Milton,  Goethe  and  Schiller,  can  only  bring  them  to  the 
polish  and  perfection  needed  in  the  creators  of  a  per- 
fect and  varied  literature.  And  so  the  course,  the  com- 
merce, and  the  collisions  of  history  do  not  abolish  psy- 
chical types  so  distinct  as  the  Indo-European  and  Sem- 
itic, only  stimulate  both  to  new  enterprises  and  more 
perfect  achievements.  Our  concern  is  not  with  the  in- 
terlacing, but  with  the  principal  branches,  standing  out 
clear  and  strong  from  the  parent  stocks,  and  marked  by 
their  well-defined  characters.  What  these  are  may  be 
best  seen  by  a  study  of  the  Races  in  Civilization,  in  Re- 
ligion, and  in  Literature  and  Philosophy. 

Professor  Spiegel,  of  Erlangen,  less  distinctly  and  in  an  almost 
purely  imitative  manner  ("  Eranische  Alterthumsk.,"  vol.  i.  pp. 
387-391)- 


230 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION: 


PART  II. 

THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 

I. 

/CIVILIZATION  is  too  complex  a  fact  to  be  easily 
^^  analyzed  or  described.  As  a  term  it  denotes  the 
degree  of  perfection  realized,  in  its  collective  and  organ- 
ized life,  by  a  given  society  or  state.  As  a  fact,  it  is 
not  the  progress  of  humanity,  but  the  point  this  progress 
has  reached  in  a  given  community ;  and  this  point  as 
the  blossom  of  past,  but  as  the  seed-plot  of  future  pro- 
gress. Were  it  perfect  we  should  have  perfect  citizens 
in  a  perfect  state.  The  more  civilized  a  state  is,  the 
more  will  it  endeavor  to  perfect  all  its  citizens ;  the 
more  perfect  the  citizens,  the  more  civilized  will  be  the 
state.  A  society  can  never  be  better  than  its  constituent 
members.  One  highly  cultured  class  in  a  state  does  not 
make  it  highly  civilized.  Its  civilization  is  determined 
both  as  to  quality  and  degree  by  the  extent  to  which  it 
creates  and  distributes  the  conditions  of  social  well- 
being,  and  the  measure  in  which  it  secures  their  realiza- 
tion by  the  individual  and  the  community.  Civilization 
s  to  a  state  what  culture  is  to  a  person,  the  harmony  in 
being  and  action  of  the  whole  nature,  the  elaboration  of 
the  social  organism  into  balanced  and  beautiful  being  by 
the  full  development  of  every  social  unit.  There  are  as 
many  varieties  and  degrees  of  civilization  as  of  culture, 
but  the  one  term,  like  the  other,  connotes  an  ideal  ele 


THE  RA  CES  IN  CI  VI LIZ  A  TION.  23 1 

ment  whose  affinities  are  with  the  good  and  progressive, 
rather  than  with  the  bad  and  decaying.* 

The  civilization  of  a  given  people  and  period  stands 
expressed  in  the  higher  and  more  vital  forms  and  forces 
of  their  social  and  national  life.  The  forms — the  laws, 
institutions,  customs,  wealth,  arts — exhibit  the  good  al- 
ready achieved  and  realized ;  the  forces  are  the  ideal 
tendencies  and  aims  that  struggle  in  the  persons  and 
through  the  forms  to  still  better  things.  What  civilizes 
must  humanize — create  throughout  the  society  a  fuller 
manhood.  If  the  civilized  stands  opposed  to  the  savage 
state,  every  vice  is  a  tendency  to  revert,  a  de-civilizing 
influence,  alien,  however  apparently  inevitable. 

Modern  civilization  stands  related  to  ancient  as  its 
heir,  but  as  an  heir  who  must,  to  retain  his  estate,  en- 
large upon  it,  improve  its  fields,  utilize  its  watercourses, 
dig  out  its  minerals,  ameliorate  its  homes,  and  throng 
its  rivers  with  cities,  that  instead  of  polluting  shall 
purify  the  waters,  instead  of  defacing  shall  beautify  the 
land.  Modern  is  more  complex,  many-sided,  universal 
than  ancient  civilization,  has  in  it  more  elements  of  pro- 
gress and  permanence,  more  seeds  of  degeneracy  and 
decay.  The  older  the  state  the  simpler  the  society,  the 
earliest  social  structures  being  the  most  rudimentary. 
Egypt  was  a  sacerdotal  state,  a  kingdom  which  stiffened 
and  died  because  it  could  not  escape  from  the  iron  hand 
of  caste.     Phoenicia  existed  for  and  by  commerce — its 

*  Guizot's  analysis  of  the  idea  and  elements  of  civilization  is  well 
known  to  every  student  of  history  ("  Hist,  de  la  Civilization  en 
Europe,"  Prem.  le9on).  Professor  Flint's  criticism  ("  Philos.  of 
Hist.,"  i.  233,  234)  is  searching,  and  in  many  respects  just.  It 
would  equally  apply  to  what  is  here  said  were  not  the  reference  to 
the  idea  of  civilization  rather  than  the  fact. 


232 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION: 


very  religion  was  made  to  minister  to  trade.  Assyria 
was  a  political  state,  but  its  laws  were  summarized  in 
the  king.  The  civilizations  that  succeeded  these  were 
more  complex,  made  up  of  a  greater  variety  of  elements, 
partly  native,  partly  foreign.  Assyria  was  as  ambitious 
as  Persia,  but  the  latter  had  a  clearer  idea  of  empire,  of 
the  relation  conquered  countries  ought  to  sustain  to  the 
conqueror.  Greece  was  as  commercial  as  Phoenicia, 
drove  indeed  her  merchants  from  the  ^gean  and  the 
Nile,  but  the  mercantile  was  an  element  too  little  deter- 
minative to  be  distinctive  of  Greek  culture.  Into  our 
own  many  past  civilizations  have  been  absorbed,  and  it 
has  by  the  absorption  been  variously  enriched.  Our 
political  constitution  is  a  splendid,  though  complex 
expansion  of  the  old  Teutonic  norm.  Our  laws,  judicial 
and  civil,  show  everywhere  the  influence  of  Rome.  Our 
literature,  art  and  Philosophy  are  permeated  with  Greek 
ideals  and  ideas.  Our  religion  has  come  to  us  from 
Judea,  but  from  Judea  as  interpreted  on  the  intellectual 
side  by  Greece,  on  the  political  by  Rome.  And  these 
elements,  while  mixed  in  the  great  crucible  of  our  col- 
lective being,  are  singly  active,  affecting  every  phase  of 
our  personal,  social  and  political  life. 

But  modern  civilization,  as  compared  with  ancient,  is 
more  universal  as  well  as  more  complex.  Our  world 
has  grown  vaster,  but  it  has  also  grown  more  accessible 
in  all  its  parts.  Distance  does  not  now  divide.  Com- 
merce has  made  east  and  west,  north  and  south  meet. 
Much  as  our  telegraph  would  have  surprised  a  Greek, 
what  it  signifies  as  to  the  relations  of  men  and  peoples 
would  have  surprised  him  still  more.  He  might  have 
been  amazed  at  reading  in  the  morning  a  debate  he  had 
heard  overnight,  and  been  still  more  amazed  to  know 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION.  233 

that  it  could  at  the  same  moment  be  read  at  what 
remains  of  his  own  Athens,  and  in  lands  he  never 
dreamed  of  beyond  the  sea.  But  what  would  have 
amazed  him  most  is  the  unity  of  interests,  the  affinities 
of  feeling,  the  sympathies  of  thought  and  action  between 
distant  and  different  peoples  such  swift  and  ceaseless 
intercourse  implies.  The  merchant  seeks  and  finds  a 
market  everywhere.  Everywhere  the  statesman  .sees  a 
people  with  whom  he  has  or  ought  to  have  relations,  the 
student  of  nature  or  man  an  object  he  ought  to  study, 
the  missionary  a  race  he  ought  to  evangelize.  Thought 
and  wealth  circulate  round  the  world.  The  ancient 
spirit  was  national,  the  modern  is  cosmopolitan.  Where 
the  idea  of  the  State  once  stood  the  idea  of  humanity 
now  stands.  The  influence  of  the  present  is  thus  be- 
coming in  every  society  so  potent  as  to  modify  the 
influence  of  the  past,  and  combine  with  it  in  shaping 
the  future.  And  so  our  civilization,  by  what  it  con- 
sciously assimilates,  as  by  what  it  unconsciously  inherits, 
is  being  made  ever  fuller,  more  varied  and  resourceful, 
less  local  as  to  position,  more  universal  as  to  character. 
And  the  individual  grows  with  the  societ>\  Our  cul- 
ture is  as  varied,  complex,  manifold  as  our  civilization. 
Its  wealth  does  not  burden  the  spirit,  or  its  volume 
overflow  the  channel  time  has  worn  in  it.  Education  is 
not  so  simple  now  as  it  was  in  ancient  Greece,  yet  it  is 
not,  perhaps,  any  more  difficult.  The  Dikaios  Logos 
might  despair  of  our  youth,  who,  though  often  familiar 
with  the  training  ground,  are  not  to  be  satisfied  with 
the  school  of  the  harper  and  the  ballads  in  praise  of 
Pallas.  His  indeed  was  a  glorious  picture  of  the  young 
man  in  his  fresh  and  dewy  spring-time,  winsomely 
beautiful,  gracefully  exercising  his  energies  as  he  ran 


234 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 


with  his  comrade  amid  the  sacred  olive-trees  of  the 
academy,  "  crowned  with  white  reeds,  smelling  of  bind- 
weed and  careless  hours  and  leaf-shedding  poplar,  re- 
joicing in  the  prime  of  spring,  when  the  plane-tree 
whispers  to  the  elm."*  But,  though  there  may  be  less 
grace  there  is  more  grandeur  in  our  ideal  of  youth,  making 
by  hard  work,  which  yet  does  not  forbid  bright  play, 
the  man  that  is  to  be.  Our  spirits  may  be  without  the 
open  sense  for  the  beautiful  which  made  life  in  their 
land  and  under  their  sky  so  delightsome  to  the  Greeks, 
but  our  world  is  a  greater  wonderland  than  theirs,  our 
makrokosm  is  more  immense,  our  mikrokosm  more 
inexhaustible.  The  stars  in  heaven  about  the  moon 
may  look  no  more  beautiful  to  us  than  they  did  to 
Homer,  but  they  have  a  mightier  meaning,  speak  to 
our  imagination  as  they  could  not  speak  to  his.  Our 
nature  may  have  less  music,  but  it  has  more  mystery, 
touches  the  spirit  with  a  deeper  and  softer  awe.  Our 
earth  has  grown  to  us  so  old  that  its  age  has  made  our 
time  widen  into  eternity.  The  very  language  we  speak 
has  its  terms  packed  with  the  science  of  many  ages  and 
the  wisdom  born  of  many  experiences.  "  Gravitation  " 
is  but  a  word,  yet  to  learn  it  is  to  possess  not  only  the 
great  thought  of  Newton,  but  the  many  discoveries  that 
made  it  possible.  "God"  does  not  simply  translate 
the  Hebrew  Elohim^  the  Greek  ^eo?,  or  the  Teutonic 
Gutha,  but  represents  to  us  a  Being  in  whom  the  might 
the  Hebrew  adored,  the  beauty  the  Greek  loved,  and 
the  paternity  the  Teuton  revered,  are  unified,  sublimed 
and   personalized.     The   vehicle   has    deepened    with 

*  Aristophanes,  "  Nubes,"  989-995.  See  the  beautiful  para- 
graph in  Mr.  Symonds'  "  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,"  pp.  267-69, 
1st  series. 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION:  235 

the  thought  it  bears,  yet  has  become  no  harder  to 
acquire  and  carry.  And  the  spirit  which  finds  so  much 
in  its  own  speech  can  find  as  much  in  others.  Greek 
has  told  to  us  more  of  its  secrets,  its  parts,  its  roots,  the 
past  it  embalms,  than  ever  it  told  to  Sokrates  or  Plato, 
subtle  master  as  he  was  of  its  music.  Everywhere  has 
a  deeper  meaning  come  into  Nature,  and  mind  now 
sits  in  the  shadow  of  immenser  mysteries,  now  rejoices 
in  the  sunshine  of  a  more  glorious  light.  Yet  with  all 
it  has  to  learn  and  to  bear,  the  spirit  of  to-day  may  be 
as  bright  and  gladsome  as  any  that  ever  recited  the 
measures  of  Homer  or  the  wisdom  of  Hesiod  ere  sophists 
had  begun  to  trouble  or  philosophers  to  teach.  So 
does  the  individual  grow  with  the  society,  less  encum- 
bered by  a  rich  and  varied  than  by  a  poor  and  narrow 
culture. 

Now,  the  becoming  of  the  civilization  which  has  so 
enriched  both  the  society  and  the  individual  is  what  we 
have  here  to  understand.  It  is  here  regarded  as  a 
creation  of  man,  the  fruit  of  energies  experience  has 
educed,  not  created.  It  has,  indeed,  been  a  cause  as 
well  as  an  effect,  has  helped  to  develop  the  nature  that 
developed  it.  The  action  has  been  reciprocal,  the 
creation  has  educated  the  creator.  But  he  has  been 
the  active  and  caasal  force,  it  the  passive  and  occasional. 
The  variety  of  the  elements  in  civilization  is  thus  due 
to  the  variety  of  the  creative  capabilities  in  man.  It  is 
at  once  the  mirror  and  the  fruit  of  mind.  And  as  the 
minds  concerned  in  its  making  were  many,  and  were 
variously  gifted  and  endowed,  their  qualities  are  re- 
flected and  reproduced  in  their  work.  Hence  the 
creators  must  explain  the  creation,  the  peoples  that 
have  civilized  the  civilization  they  have  made.  These, 
then,  must  first  be  understood. 


236  THE  RA  CES  IN  CIVILIZA  TlOJSr. 


II. 


As  our  work  must  be  historical,  while  analytical,  we 
must  begin  by  attempting  to  form  as  clear  and  coherent 
a  picture  as  is  possible  of  the  two  races  as  they  existed 
in  what  is  the  nearest  point  we  can  reach  to  the  primi- 
tive and  simply  potential  state.  Our  light  is  of  the  dim, 
but  not  altogether  uncertain,  sort  supplied  by  Com- 
parative Philology  and  Mythology  ;  but  such  as  it  is,  we 
must  do  our  best  to  see  by  it.  We  begin  with  the  Indo- 
Europeans.* 

Centuries  before  the  dawn  of  history,  how  many  we 
need  not  attempt  to  guess,  there  lived  in  central  and 
western  Asia  a  tribe  or  clan  still  nomadic,  yet  not 
altogether  without  the  rude  beginnings  of  agriculture. 
They  had  a  language  rich  in  words  and  inflections,  old 
enough  to  have  lost  and  won  much  by  the  processes 
that  have  been  termed  phonetic  decay  and  dialectical 
regeneration.  Though  without  cities,  they  had  what 
may  be  called  a  civilization,  rudimentary  indeed, 
but  with  rudiments  plastic,  expansive,  generous.  The 
man  was  named  vlra^  the  desirer,  the  being  laden  with 

*  The  materials  used  in  the  following  sketch  of  the  pre-historic 
Indo-European  civilization  are  derived  from  Max  Muller's  Essay 
on  Comparative  Mythology,  "  Chips,"  vol.  ii. ;  Pictet's  "  Les 
Origines  des  Indo-Europeennes,"  a  most  interesting  work,  but  not 
too  trustworthy  ;  Pick's  "  Vergleichendes  Worterbuch  der  Indo- 
Germanischen  Sprachen,"  and  "  Die  Ehemalige  Spracheinheit  der 
Indo-Germanen  Europas."  My  obligations  are  greatest  to  Fick. 
A  very  useful  and  readable  essay  on  tlie  same  subject  appears  in 
the  volume  of  Essays  and  Addresses  by  Professors  of  Owen's  Col- 
lege— "  Some  Historical  Results  of  the  Science  of  Language,"  by 
Professor  A.  S.  Wilkins. 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION.  237 

the  instincts  that  made  home  and  created  society,  and 
became  in  defence  of  the  home  he  had  made  the  strong, 
the  hero.  The  woman  was  gana  and  gdni^  the  fruitful, 
the  childbearer.  The  man  who  had  become  a  husband 
Yizspatiy  master,  lord  ;  the  woman  who  was  his  wife  was 
patnid^  mistress,  lady — through  marriage  the  one  real- 
ized manhood,  the  other  womanhood,  wife  never  being 
in  the  common  speech  of  our  family  the  synonym e  of 
domestic  slave.  The  man  become  a  father  was  pdtar, 
protector,  provider ;  the  woman  become  a  mother  was 
mdtar,  the  measurer,  the  manager,  who  ruled  home  and 
distributed  to  old  and  young  the  food  she  cooked.  The 
children  were  to  the  parents,  the  son  suna,  the  begetter, 
not  the  begotten,  named  from  what  he  was  to  be,  not 
from  what  he  was  ;  and  the  daughter  dhughtar,  the 
milker,  so  named,  not  because  she  was  the  primitive 
dairymaid,  but  because  she  was  to  be  a  giver  of  milk,  a 
full-breasted  nurse.  To  each  other  the  children  were 
not  man  and  woman,  or  still  worse  husband  and  wife,  but 
dhrdtdr,  brother,  sustainer,  defender,  at  once  winner  of 
bread  and  guardian  of  the  home  treasures,  and  svasar, 
sister,  one's  own,  the  pre-eminently  mine,  child  and  light 
of  the  home.  When  marriage  came  to  create  new  re- 
lations the  daughter-in-law  was  sunu-sd,  the  son-ess,  with 
as  good  a  standing  in  the  family  as  her  husband,  yet 
though  a  young  wife,  not  a  mistress,  the  father-in-law 
being  svasura,  my  master,  the  mother-in-law  svasru, 
my  mistress.  The  grandchild  was  napat^  the  descend- 
ant ;  the  widow,  vidhavd,  the  bereft,  the  spoiled  of  Death 
the  great  robber.  The  family  lived  in  a  house  graced 
by  a  door,  surrounded  by  a  court,  where,  perhaps,  the 
householder  gathered  his  cattle  for  milking,  his  sheep 
for  shearing,  and  where  stood  stalls  for  his  horses.  His 


238  THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 

flocks  and  herds  constituted  his  wealth,  which,  by  aid 
of  his  faithful  dog,  he  drove  and  tended.  He  knew  and 
had  named  fowls,  wild  and  domestic,  beasts  of  prey  as 
well  as  of  burden,  plants  noxious  and  nutritious  ;  had^ 
too,  discovered  the  more  common  metals,  and  made 
himself  weapons  of  offence  and  defence.  He  could 
kindle  a  fire  and  use  it  for  cooking,  could  weave  clothes 
for  himself  from  the  wool  his  sheep  supplied.  He  knew 
how  to  make  and  use  the  boat  and  the  oar ;  had  ob- 
served and  named  the  greater  objects  and  the  grander 
phenomena  of  Nature,  had  made  the  moon  measure  the 
month.  He  had  distinguished  his  senses  and  knew 
their  uses.  He  could  count  as  high,  at  least,  as  a 
hundred,  could  compare,  had  a  greater  and  less,  a  better 
and  best.  He  had  a  polity,  the  notion  of  law  he  had 
formulated,  the  idea  of  right  he  honored.  He  had  a 
religion,  believed  in  gods  he  was  bound  to  worship,  who 
loved  sacrifice  and  incense,  were  not  like  man  marta, 
mortal,  but  anmarta,  immortal.  And  the  name  he  gave 
to  his  god  was  borrowed  from  the  brightest,  most 
glorious,  and  unchangeable  object  he  knew,  the  blue, 
beautiful,  luminous,  all-encompassing  heaven,  that  abode 
for  ever,  looked  unimpassioned,  but  never  heedless  on 
man's  coming  and  going  in  his  successive  generations, 
that  was  often  disturbed  by  storms  or  darkened  by 
clouds,  but  yet  ever  broke  into  the  clear  shining  that 
comes  after  rain.  And,  lest  he  should  lose  the  god  in 
the  splendor  of  the  name,  he  qualified  it  by  the  very 
word  which  marked  the  fulness  of  his  own  manhood,  so 
confessing  as  his  comfort  in  life  and  hope  in  death  his 
faith  in  the  great  Heaven-Father. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  picture,  dim,  indeed,  compared 
with  what  it  might  be  made,  but  still  in  its  main  lines 


THE  RACES  IN  CI  VI LIZ  A  TION.  239 

distinct  enough  to  give  a  clear  image  of  our  fathers  as 
they  lived  a  yet  undivided  family.  One  or  two  things 
here  deserve  notice.  The  family  institution  is  loved 
and  honored.  Polygamy  and  polyandry  are  alike  un- 
known. The  names  that  denote  intimate  and  even 
remote  relatives  are  many.  The  father  supplies  the 
thought  that  most  exalts  and  the  word  that  best  defines 
God  in  heaven  and  the  ruler  on  earth.  Yet  the  woman 
has  also  her  rights,  and  she  would  be  as  little  likely 
then  as  now  to  leave  them  unclaimed  and  unexercised. 
The  family  is  the  source  of  dignity ;  the  father  is  im- 
portant, not  as  a  man,  but  as  its  head.  The  state  we 
see  dimly  through  Cassar,  more  clearly  through  Tacitus, 
as  the  state  of  our  Teutonic  fathers  evidently  exists  here 
in  germ.  The  community  owns  the  land  ;  the  family 
its  home  and  cattle  ;  but  the  individual  as  such,  nothing ; 
holds  only  as  standing  within  a  family  which  stands 
within  the  state. 

Now  this  clan,  wandering  in  its  vast  primitive  home, 
gets  broken  into  two  great  divisions,  possibly  either  divi- 
ded by  the  incursions  of  hostile  tribes,  or  simply  in  search 
of  new  pastures.  The  one  section  retires  south-east- 
ward, and  penetrates  through  the  passes  of  the  Hindu- 
kush  to  India ;  the  other  north-westward,  and  slowly 
finds  its  way  into  Europe.  The  southern  or  Aryan 
division,  after  a  period  of  unity,  again  breaks  up,  the 
Hindus  to  press  further  into  India,  to  sing  their  Vedic 
hymns,  conquer  the  native  tribes,  and  develop  the  most 
elaborate,  social  and  sacerdotal  tyranny  the  world  has 
ever  known  ;  the  Iranians  to  seek  and  settle  in  the 
highlands  of  Iran,  become  a  great,  though  evanescent 
empire,  and  evolve  the  most  exalted  religion  of  the 
race.     The  western  or  European  division  held  together 


240 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 


awhile,  developed  further  their  common  speech,  learned 
to  make  the  plough,  to  ear  the  ground,  divide  the  field, 
to  attain  greater  complexity  of  domestic  and  social  re- 
lations. Then  a  tribe  parted  from  the  rest,  forced  its 
way  westward,  absorbed  or  drove  before  it  the  abori- 
gines, and  did  not  pause  till  it  had  reached  the  sea  and 
the  islands  that  look  out  into  the  Atlantic,  where  it 
stayed  to  manifest  in  rude  but  magnificent  monuments 
the  architectural  genius  that  has  never  deserted  the 
Celt.  The  still  united  sister  tribes  by  and  by  broke  into 
northern  and  southern  branches ;  each  branch  again 
dividing  into  an  eastern  and  western — the  northern  into 
the  Slav  and  the  Teuton  ;  the  southern  into  the  Greek 
and  Italian,  each  carrying  the  portion  of  the  common 
heritage  he  was  to  develop  in  his  own  way  and  time  for 
the  being  of  himself,  but  for  the  well-being  of  humanity. 
There  is  something  that  strangely  touches  the  im- 
agination in  those  bands  of  brothers  each  going  its  own 
way  to  a  near  or  distant,  more  or  less  glorious  destiny. 
They  were  soon  to  forget  their  kinship,  to  become  in 
some  cases  ignorant  of  each  other's  existence,  to  meet 
in  others  as  civilized  and  barbarian,  or  as  black  and 
white,  but  almost  always  as  deadly  foemen.  When 
Greek  and  Persian  met  in  the  war  that  decided  for  ever 
the  supremacy  of  the  West  they  despised  each  other  as 
men  of  alien  blood.  Yet  through  the  pride  of  race  and 
of  victory  there  seems  to  steal  a  faint  feeling  of  the 
truth,  when  the  old  historian  tells  us  that  the  Persians 
who  fought  at  Plataea  were  in  "  bravery  and  warlike  spirit 
no  whit  inferior  to  the  Greeks."*  The  Romans  that,  under 

*  Herodotos,  lib.  ix.  c.  62.  iEschylos,  too,  who  had  a  soldier's 
love  of  courage,  though  an  enemy's,  styled  the  Persians  a  "  valiant- 
hearted  people  "  ("  Pers.,"  94). 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 


241 


Caesar  or  Agricola,  or  Germaiiicus,  in  Gaul,  Britain,  or 
Germany,  "  made  a  solitude  and  called  it  peace,"  did 
not  dream  that  the  wild  tribes  they  so  curiously  studied 
and  so  cruelly  conquered  were  of  their  own  kin,  and 
on  that  wild  day  in  the  Teutoburger  Wald  when  Varo 
and  his  legions  perished  before  the  heroism  of  Arminius 
and  the  revenge  of  his  Germans,  no  man  on  either  side 
imagined  that  the  blood  he  shed  was  a  brother's.  And 
when  fair-haired  Saxon  and  tawny  Hindu  met  on  the 
sultry  plains  of  India,  with  hate  inspired  by  antagonistic 
religions  and  aims, — who  could  have  believed  that  their 
fathers  had  once  herded  their  flocks  together,  watched 
the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun,  "  and  the  immeasur- 
able heavens  break  open  to  their  highest,  and  all  the 
stars  shine  ? "  Yet  so  it  is,  on  the  great  stage  of  the 
world  as  on  the  small  stage  of  the  family,  brothers  part 
in  youth  to  meet  strangers  in  age,  the  one  a  millionaire 
the  other  a  beggar. 

But  we  must  now  glance  at  the  other  family,  the 
Semitic.  Comparative  Semitic  Philology,  though  it  has 
proved  the  pre-historic  unity  of  the  family,  is  still  too 
backward  and  on  essential  points  too  conjectural  to  sup- 
ply the  materials  for  a  sketch  of  its  pre-historic  state. 
There  is  no  language  that  can  be  used  for  the  Semitic 
tongues  as  the  Sanskrit  has  been  for  the  Indo-European. 
The  Assyrian  discoveries  promise,  indeed,  great  things, 
linguist'.c,  ethnographic,  mythological,  but  the  process 
is  still  too  much  one  of  analysis  and  verification  to  fur- 
nish data  for  synthesis  and  construction.  Their  value, 
too,  is  sectional  rather  than  general,  not  so  much  for 
the  whole  family  as  for  its  northern  branch.  Much  may 
also  be  hoped  from  the  sub-Semitic  dialects  of  Africa, 
especially  in  the  way  of  throwing  light  on  the  earliest 

16 


242       *         THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION-. 

changes  and  migrations  of  Semitic  speech.  Meanwhile 
the  best  we  can  do  is  to  use  what  is  known  cautiously 
and  wait  for  further  light. 

What,  then,  can  we  know  as  to  the  primitive.  Semitic 
family  ?  Its  home  was  probably  in  Arabia,  central  and 
northern.*  There  it  lived  the  nomadic  life  distinctive 
of  the  desert  tribes  to  this  day.  Its  polity  was  not,  as  in 
the  sister  family,  communal,  but  patriarchal.  The  fam- 
ily was — the  father.  The  woman  was  the  servant,  per- 
haps the  slave.  In  the  Semitic  language  the  nouns  de- 
notive  of  serviceable  organs,  instruments,  and  utensils, 
are  mostly  feminine  \  a  fact  which  may  allow  the  infer- 
ence that  the  masculine  was  the  served,  the  feminine 
the  serving  gender.  Their  religion  was  severe,  stern. 
The  Nature  they  knew  was  neither  kindly  nor  fruitful. 
Their  heaven  was  by  day  a  consuming  fire,  by  night 
more  glorious  and  beneficent ;  and  so  their  naturalism 
was  on  its  better  side  astral  rather  than  solar.  Their 
deities  were  conceived  as  mighty,  masterly,  or  sovereign, 
rather  than  as  bright,  genial,  or  paternal.  Their  life 
was  a  hard  struggle  against  an  unpropitious  Nature ; 
their  religion  a  belief  in  gods  who  were  the  stern  rulers 
of  men. 

The  nomadic  life  is  not  favorable  to  political  unity  or 
progress.  As  the  family  grew  it  would  tend  to  throw 
out  and  throw  off  branches,  and  so  it  seems  to  have 

*  This,  of  course,  is  much  more  conjectural  than  the  inference  as 
to  the  primitive  home  of  the  Indo-European  family.  The  opinion 
here  ventured  has  recentl)'  been  maintained  with  characteristic 
scholarship  and  ability  by  Professor  Schrader  {"  Zeitschrift  der 
Deuts.  Morgenland.  Gesellschaft,"  xxvii.  pp.  397  f.).  See,  on  the 
other  hand,  Renan,  "  Hist.  Gen.  et  Sys.  Comp.  des  Langues  Semi- 
tiques,"  pp.  26  £f. 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION.  243 

divided  very  early  into  four,  the  southern,  centro-south- 
ern,  northern,  and  centro-northern.  The  southern  broke 
into  the  Himyaritic,  Sabean,  yEthiopic  peoples,  and 
those  advanced  outposts  which  have  left  the  sub-Sem- 
itic dialects  as  witnesses  of  their  having  been.  The 
centro-southern  branch  was  the  Arabian,  the  most  purely 
Semitic  in  growth  and  character.  The  northern  was 
the  Aramaean.  The  centro-northern  became  the  Babylo- 
Assyrians,  Phoenicians,  and  Hebrews.  These,  after 
breaking  from  the  parent  stem,  seem  to  have  lived  long 
together,  probably  settling  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian 
Gulf,  and  extending  up  the  Euphrates  valley  till  they 
reached  the  ancient  civilization  that  had  grown  up  there. 
Of  this  the  affinities  of  their  tongues,  mythologies,  and 
traditions  appear  to  furnish  decisive  evidence.'*  The 
Assyrian  is  more  akin  to  the  Hebrew  and  the  Phoeni- 
cian than  to  any  other  Semitic  speech.  The  mytholo- 
gies are  in  some  respects  startlingly  alike.  The  original 
home  of  the  Hebrew  patriarch  was  Ur  of  the  Chaldees, 
and  the  Phoenicians  represented  themselves  as  having 
come  from  the  Persian  Gulf.f  There  are,  too,  similar- 
ities in  their  sciences,  arts,  and  industries  that  imply 
their  having  learned  together  the  rudiments  of  settled 
and  civilized  life. 

Of  the  Semitic  peoples  those  of  the  northern  and  two 
central  branches  alone  became  historical  in  the  highest 
sense.     Yet  they  did  not  alone  become  civilized.  Those 

*  Schrader,  ut  supra,  pp.  401  £f.,  and  in  the  "  Jahrbiicher  fiir 
Protestantiche  Theologie,"  No.  i,  art.  "  Seinitismus  und  Babylon- 
ismus."  Sayce,  "  Assyrian  Grammar,"  pp.  1-3.  Duncker,  "  Ges- 
chichte  des  Alterthums,"  vol.  i.  pp.  194,  285  ff. 

t  Gen.  xi.  28,  31.  Ur  is  the  modern  Mugheir.  Strabo,  i.  2,  35 ; 
xvi.  3,  4 ;  4,  27.     Plin.,  "  Nat.  Hist.,"  iv.  36.   Herod.,  i.  i ;  vii.  89. 


244  ^^^  RACES  IN  CIVILIZA  TION. 

of  the  southern  branch  proved  themselves  capable  of 
great  things,  achieved  great  things,  have  left  the  monu- 
ments of  a  very  advanced  civilization.  But  their  oppor- 
tunities were  not  equal  to  their  energies.  Their  geogra- 
phical position  was  unfavorable.  There  was  no  sister 
family  they  could  at  once  stimulate  and  be  stimulated 
by.  And  so  our  present  purpose  compels  us  to  drop 
them  out  of  sight. 


III. 


Here,  then,  we  are  face  to  face  with  our  two  races 
prepared  to  enter  on  the  great  stage  of  history.  And 
in  entering  upon  it  they  prove  themselves  possessed  of 
one  quality  in  common — extraordinary  assimilative,  imi- 
tative, and  progressive  f)ower.  Ever  since  the  Spanish 
discovery  and  conquest  of  America  we  have  been  fa- 
miliar enough  with  the  dismal  tale  of  the  less  dying  out 
before  the  more  civilized  races.  But  here  we  meet  with 
a  different  story.  The  two  branches  of  each  of  our  two 
races  that  were  the  first  to  touch  the  ancient  civiliza- 
tions were  the  first  to  become  in  the  higher,  in  one  case, 
in  the  highest  sense,  civilized — the  Assyrians  and  the 
Phoenicians  on  the  Semitic  side,  the  Iranians  and  the 
Greeks  on  the  Indo-European.  These  names,  indeed, 
mark  the  transition  from  pre- historic  to  historic,  from 
Eastern  to  Western  civilization.  The  Assyrian  was  the 
heir  of  the  Accadian  culture,  but  the  Iranian  of  the 
Assyrian.  Phoenicia  was  the  scholar  of  Egypt  and 
Babylon,  but  the  teacher  of  Greece.  The  Semitic  civil- 
izations were  much  older  than  the  Indo-European, 
but  much  younger  than  those  of  the  Euphrates  and  Nile 
valleys.     In  the  former,  possibly  centuries  before  the 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATIOxV.  245 

Other  family  had  entered  either  India  or  Europe,  the 
Assyrians  had  met  a  Turanian  or  Ural-Altaic  people, 
settled  in  cities,  skilled  in  architecture,  astrology, 
writing,  the  arts  of  peace  and  war.  What  they  found 
they  appropriated.  Their  culture  terms  are  mostly 
Turanian,  growths  of  the  earlier  soil.  Their  science, 
mythology,  writing,  arts,  industries,  are  in  root  and  es- 
sence Accadian.*  The  children  of  the  desert,  vigorous, 
acquisitive,  warlike,  imitated  the  arts  and  conquered  the 
liberties  of  their  more  cultured  but  weaker  neighbors. 
The  Iranians  stood  related,  though  less  intimately,  to 
the  Babylo-Assyrian  as  the  latter  to  the  Accadian.  The 
architecture  and  sculptures,  the  cuneiform  writing,  the 
chariots  and  horsemen,  the  wicker  shields  we  know  so 
well  from  Herodotos,t  all  indicate  the  dependence  of 
Persian  art  on  that  which  had  flourished  for  ages  in  the 
valleys  between  the  two  streams.  Phoenicia,  partly 
educated  in  Babylonia  and  early  familiar  with  Egypt, 
transplanted  their  arts  to  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and,  urged 
by  the  love  of  gainful  enterprise,  carried  them  over  the 
many-islanded  sea  to  the  men  of  Ionic  and  Doric  blood, 
who,  awakened  by  the  light  thus  brought  from  the  East, 
soon  became  the  foremost  runners  i.n  the  race  of  pro- 
gress and  culture. 

But  these  newer  were  not  simply  imitations  of  the 
older  civilizations.    The  fresh  people  brought  more  than 

*  See  an  interesting  paper  by  Mr.  Sayce,  "  The  Origin  of  Semitic 
Civilization,"  in  "  Transactions  of  Society  of  Bib.  Archaeology," 
vol.  i.  pp.  294  ff.  Also  his  art.  "  Babylonia,"  "  Encyclop.  Brit.'* 
And  Schrader's  recent  essay,  "  1st  das  Akkadische  der  Keilins- 
chrif ten  eine  Sprache  Oder  eine  Schrift?"  "Zeitschrift  der  Mor- 
genl.  Gesellschaft,"  vol.  xxix.  pp.  6  ff. 

t  ix.  61.     Also  Xenophon,  "  Anab.,"  i.  viii.  89. 


246  THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION, 

it  received  ;  faculties,  aptitudes,  latent  energies,  institu- 
tions and  tendencies  that  variously  modified,  amplified, 
and  developed  what  they  found.  The  old  people  did 
not  absorb  the  new:  the  new,  stimulated  by  a  civiliza- 
tion so  far  in  advance  of  its  own,  started  into  fuller  life, 
yet  a  life  determined  in  all  its  material  elements  from 
within,  not  from  without.  The  old  culture  was  the  sug- 
gestive cause,  but  the  efficient  was  the  new  people.  A 
people  is  too  like  a  living  organism,  with  all  its  parts  in 
continual  interaction,  to  be  capable  of  being  assimilated 
by  a  full-bodied  civilization.  The  people  may  assimilate 
the  civilization  ;  the  civilization  cannot  assimilate  the 
people. 

We  have  then  an  efficient  or  real  and  a  suggestive  or 
formal  cause.  The  first  is  the  new  people,  the  second 
the  old  cultures.  Their  relations  may  be  illustrated,  if 
not  determined  and  defined.  We  have  seen  that  each 
family  had  its  distinctive  political  type  ;  the  Indo  Eu- 
ropean was  communal,  the  Semitic  was  patriarchal.  In 
the  one  case  the  family,  in  the  other  the  father  was  the 
political  unit.  Now,  there  is  nothing  that  so  pervades 
and  so  commands  a  society  as  the  idea  latent  in  the 
germ  from  which  it  was  developed.  The  idea  may  not 
be  distinctly  apprehended  by  any  mind,  but  it  lives  a 
plastic  power  in  all.  So  the  primitive  political  idea 
went  with  the  several  branches  of  each  family,  and 
governed  their  development  into  nations  and  societies. 
In  the  one  race  monogamy,*  in  the  other  polygamy  was 

*  Of  course,  this  does  not  exclude  exceptional  cases,  like  that  of 
ancient  Persia,  where  polygamy  existed.  But  even  there  traces  of 
the  original  monogamy  can  be  discovered,  as  in  the  monarch  having 
only  one  queen,  though  several  wives,  and  the  authority  of  the 
queen-mother.  Arrian,  "  Exped.  Alex.,"  ii.  12;  Herod.,  viii.  114J 
Plut.,  "  Vitae  Artax.,"  c.  5. 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION.  247 

common,  which  simply  means, — while  the  one  had  equal 
respect  to  the  person  and  rights  of  man  and  woman,  the 
other  gave  rights  to  the  male  and  only  duties  to  the 
female.  The  communal  principle  extended  from  the 
family  to  the  state  becomes  a  commonwealth,  but  the 
patriarchal  becomes  an  absolute  monarchy.  The  com- 
monwealth may  exist  as  a  kingdom,  a  republic,  or  a 
democracy,  but  in  all  its  forms  the  people  remains  the 
fountain  of  authority.  The  monarchy  may  be  an  au- 
tocracy, where  the  authority  is  impersonated  in  one 
man,  king  by  divine  right,  or  a  theocracy,  where  the 
authority  is  concentrated  in  a  caste,  priests  by  divine 
right.  Now,  the  Indo-European  states  have  been  com- 
monwealths, and  even  where,  through  the  operation  of 
exceptional  forces,  they  have  become  empires,  as  in 
ancient  Persia  and  in  modern  Russia,  the  communal  has 
continued  to  modify  the  imperial  idea  \  but  the  Semitic 
states  have  been  absolute  monarchies,  quite  as  much  so 
ideally  when  without  as  in  reality  when  with  a  king. 
And  so  in  the  one  family  the  state  has  existed  for  its 
citizens,  but  in  the  other  for  its  head.  In  the  one  case 
the  aim  has  been  to  perfect  the  ruled  ;  in  the  other  to 
glorify  the  ruler.  Agamemnon  might  be  the  king  of 
men,  Hengest  and  Horsa  the  children  of  Wodin,  but 
they  were  leaders  that  had  to  consult  and  obey  the  led. 
Rome  might  become  imperial,  but  she  was  an  empire 
that  hardly  ceased  in  form,  however  much  in  fact,  to  be 
a  republic.  Assyria,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  history 
but  the  history  of  her  kings  ;  theirs  are  the  deeds  that 
are  glorified,  theirs  the  fame  and  name  that  can  never 
perish.  The  Hebrew  monarchy  at  its  highest  point 
means  but  David  and  Solomon  ;  and  nowhere,  perhaps, 
has  the  faith  that  sanctifies  and  the  hopes  that  exalt  a 


248  THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 

throne  had  such  splendid  expression  as  in  those  thit 
gathered  round  David's.  Islam  is  but  faith  in  the  one 
Prophet-King  of  the  one  God,  Deity  incarnate  as  truth, 
though  not  as  essence,  in  Mahomet.  A  people  works 
out  its  ideas  with  a  daring,  though  with  an  unconscious, 
logic,  and  often  achieves  a  consistency  impossible  to  the 
subtlest  dialectic. 

But  the  very  different  parts  played  by  the  stimulating 
civilization  and  the  stimulated  people  may  be  still  better 
illustrated  by  the  history  of  art.  The  illustration  is  the 
more  appropriate  that  art  exhibits  the  action  of  the 
political  idea  outside  the  political  sphere.  Assyria, 
Phoenicia,  and  Egypt  contributed  to  the  birth  of  architec- 
ture and  sculpture  in  Greece.  In  her  earliest  attempts 
the  influence  of  her  masters  is  apparent  enough.  But 
nothing  could  well  be  more  unlike  than  the  creations  of 
their  respective  primes.  The  sculptures  that  the  chisel 
of  Pheidias  created  subtly  incorporated  the  mind  of 
Greece,  carved  out  in  tangible  yet  idealized  forms  the 
genius  of  a  free  people,  that  loved  beauty  and  activity, 
the  city  where  the  one  lived  for  the  many,  and  the  many 
legislated  for  the  one,  the  gods  graceful,  gracious  yet 
majestic,  who  smiled  in  sunshine  or  wept  in  rain  out  of 
the  blue  and  eternal  heaven.  But  the  pyramids,  the 
magnificent  temples  and  tombs  that  adorn  the  valley  of 
the  Nile,  are  monuments  of  a  despotism  that  counted 
the  toil  and  misery  of  millions  nothing  to  the  service  of 
a  priest  or  the  memory  of  a  king.*  The  palaces  that 
have  been  unearthed  on  the  banks  of  the  ancient  streams 
that  watered  the  Garden  of  the  Lord,  show  a  state  which 
meant  only  the  sovereign,  where  the  thousands  lived 
but  to  build  the  king's  house,  fight  his  battles,  multiply 
*  Herodotos,  ii.  124,  128. 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 


249 


his  titles,  and  perpetuate  his  name  ;  while  the  ruined 
amphitheatres  which  tell  where  Roman  cities  once 
stood,  are  significant  of  an  empire  which  rose  out  of  a 
republic,  popular  while  imperial,  living  only  as  it 
pleased  the  permissive,  if  not  creative,  will  of  the 
people. 

But  the  old  cultures  and  the  fresh  peoples  are  not  in 
themselves  enough  to  explain  the  civilizations  that  now 
arose.  These  were  varied  in  type,  even  when  realized 
by  the  most  nearly  related  branches  of  the  same  stock. 
To  understand  how  and  why  these  varieties  emerge,  the 
action  of  two  conditional  or  occasional  causes  must  be 
considered — geographical  position  and  ethnical  rela- 
tions. The  effect  of  these  can  be  seen  in  the  two 
earliest  Semitic  civilizations,  the  Assyrian  and  the 
Phoenician. 

The  Assyrians  settled  in  the  upper  region  of  the  great 
Mesopotamian  valley.  The  river  valley  is  favorable  to 
an  early,  but  seldom  to  an  expansive  and  generous 
civilization.  The  culture  born  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile, 
shut  in  by  its  deserts,  without  the  timber  necessary  to 
the  building  of  ships  that  could  brave  the  sea,  tended 
to  become,  and  became,  monotonous,  mummified,  mark- 
ing time,  but  not  making  history.*  The  Assyrian  cul- 
ture was  also  born  in  a  river  valley,  but  was  not  affected 
like  the  Egyptian  by  its  birth-place.  Commercial 
indeed  the  Assyrians  could  not  become.  They  were 
without  the  material  for  ships,  and,  besides,  Babylon 
stood  between  them  and  the  sea.  Transit  by  land  was 
expensive  and  difficult,  and  they  could  easily  raise  where 
they  lived  the  necessaries  of  life.     But  the  character  of 

*  Curtius,  "  Hist,  of  Greece,"  i.  1 5. 


250  THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 

the  people  and  their  political  relations  modified  the 
action  of  the  position.  They  were  surrounded  by  inde- 
pendent and  alien  tribes.  They  had  to  defend  their 
city,  and  soon  found  that  the  best  defence  was  the  con- 
quest of  the  enemy.  The  conquered  enemy  was  made 
not  only  powerless,  but  tributary ;  his  defeat  at  once 
protected  and  enriched  the  city.  Soon  ideas  were  formed 
which  generated  ambition,  aptitudes  v^hich  developed 
into  martial  genius.  When  conquest  was  found  to  be 
remunerative,  a  good  reason  was  discovered  why  it 
should  be  carried  outside  the  circle  of  hostile  people. 
Every  nation  vanquished  meant  new  wealth  to  the  victor 
— the  more  numerous  the  tributaries  the  more  splendid 
the  sovereign  state.  And  so  their  culture  became  emi- 
nently military  and  imperial.  In  literature  and  science 
they  remained  the  pupils  of  Babylon.  In  architecture 
they  were  little  more  than  imitators,  though  they  so 
reflected  their  massiveness  in  their  works  as  to  be  to  a 
certain  degree  in  size  and  expression,  if  not  in  design, 
original.  In  their  age  of  greatest  wealth  and  luxury 
their  commerce  was  extensive,  but  it  was  a  commerce 
made  by  their  greatness,  not  making  it.  They  lived  by 
conquest,  and  when  they  ceased  to  conquer  they  ceased 
to  live.* 

Thus,  then,  on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris,  as  later  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber,  a  brave  clan  developed  through  its 
conflict  with  hostile  tribes  into  a  great  world-empire. 
The  Assyrians  are  for  many  reasons  well  entitled  to  be 
named  "  the  Romans  of  Asia."t     They  were  the  first  to 

*  It  is  significant  that  in  the  time  of  Herodotos  Nineveh  was  a 
thing  of  the  past  (i.  193).  After  its  fall  Assyria  may  be  said  to 
vanish  from  history,  the  only  allusion  to  it  showing  its  impotence. 

t  Rawlinson,  "  Ancient  Monarchies,"  i.  2-39. 


THE  RA CES  IN  CIVILIZA  TION.  25 1 

conceive  and  realize  the  dream  of  universal  dominion. 
The  old  cultured  peoples  were  not  ambitious  as  they 
were.  And  their  ambition  was  a  genuine  growth  of 
their  spirit,  inspired  as  it  was  by  religious  enthusiasm. 
They  imagined  that  the  being  of  their  state  was  the 
glory  of  its  god  ;  as  it  was  enlarged  he  was  magnified. 
And  he  was  represented  by  the  king.  The  sovereign, 
indeed,  epitomized  the  state.  And  it  is  significant  that 
the  strength  of  Assyria  was  its  sovereigns.  Perhaps  no 
people  ever  had  so  many  great  kings.  For  almost 
seven  centuries  they  maintained  their  empire.  Their 
armies  penetrated  on  the  east  to  India,  on  the  north  to 
the  Caspian  Sea,  on  the  west  to  the  Nile  and  Isles  of 
the  ^gean.  The  wealth  of  Phoenicia,  the  ancient 
cultures  of  Eg}^t  and  Babylon,  had  to  confess  their 
supremacy.  At  first  their  ambition  was  satisfied  with 
homage  and  tribute,  but  later  they  had  so  learned  the 
art  of  rule  as  to  appoint  their  own  governers,  and 
enforce  their  authoiity  within  the  conquered  province. 
The  first  empire  was  certainly  not  the  least  in  energy, 
progressive  intelligence,  and  capacity  to  deal  with  its 
subject  peoples. 

The  Assyrian,  then,  marks  an  enormous  advance  on 
previous  cultures.  With  it  civilization  enters  on  a  new 
phase,  becomes  aggressive,  missionary,  as  it  were.  By 
its  conquests  dissimilar  peoples  were  made  to  touch  and 
teach  each  other,  the  less  were  opened  to  the  influence 
of  the  more  civilized.  Science  was  diffused,  commerce 
extended,  arts  increased.  The  knowledge  of  Egypt  was 
carried  eastward ;  the  science  of  Mesopotamia  was 
planted  among  the  tribes  that  had  settled  in  the  high- 
lands of  Iran.  Palestine  and  Persia  were  introduced  to 
each  other,  and  by  the  introduction  their  religions,  the 


=  52 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION'. 


highest  evolved  by  the  two  races,  mutually  profited.  Mind 
was  everywhere  stimulated  by  contact  with  fresh  minds. 
The  wealth,  material  and  mental,  that  had  been  accumu- 
lating in  isolated  places  was  set  in  circulation,  and  so  at 
once  raised  in  value,  increased  in  quantity,  and  made 
more  variously  productive.  The  very  wars  evoked 
heroism,  the  patriotism  that  fused  scattered  tribes  into 
homogeneous  peoples.  The  first  world-empire  made 
the  others  possible.  Assyria  created  Persia,  and  Persia 
gave  a  powerful  impulse  to  Greek,  and  through  it  to 
Western  civilization.  The  Persian  wars  ennobled  the 
Greek  character,  promoted  the  free  development  of  the 
Greek  states,  quickened  the  Greek  intellect  on  all  its 
sides,  helped  to  create  the  golden  age  of  its  poetry, 
philosophy,  and  art.  So  the  Semitic  spirit  did  splendid 
service  to  the  cause  of  civilization  when  it  created  the 
first  universal  empire.  It  achieved  a  new  thing  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  made  human  progress  easier, 
swifter,  and  more  sure. 

We  come  now  to  the  Phoenicians.  Their  seats  were 
on  the  Syrian  seaboard.  The  land  was  fertile,  and  so 
was  the  sea.  The  fruits  of  the  one  and  the  fish  of 
the  other  offered  to  industry  and  enterprise  the  stim- 
ulus they  needed.  The  land  did  not  exhaust  their  ener- 
gies, while  the  sea  afforded  them  an  inexhaustible  field. 
The  wooded  slopes  of  Lebanon  supplied  material  for 
ships,  and  the  coast  was  cut  into  safe  and  sheltered  har- 
bors. They  had,  too,  when  their  culture  was  young,  no 
dangerously  hostile  environment.  The  tribes  that  came 
pressing  behind  were  kindred.  The  aborigines  were  not 
formidable  foemen.  The  old  civilized  states,  Egypt 
and  Babylon,  were  too  distant  to  be  feared,  yet  near 
enough  to  be  reached.  The  desert  tribes,  too,  of  Syria  and 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION:  253 

Arabia,  ever  in  need  of  the  products  of  a  fruitful  land, 
invited  to  commerce.  And  as  their  ships  ventured  along 
the  coast  and  out  to  sea,  they  came  upon  men  of  a  whiter 
and  simpler  race,  who  looked  with  wonder  and  desire 
on  the  products  of  a  civilization  so  much  in  advance  of 
their  own.  Exchange  was  simple.  The  wares  of  Meso- 
potamia and  the  Nile  could  be  hawked  by  the  caravan 
or  the  ship,*  and  sold  at  such  profits  as  can  be  realized 
when  a  more  trades  with  a  less  cultured  people.  But 
the  trader  soon  discovered  that  it  was  more  profitable 
to  be  the  manufacturer  as  well.  So  he  began  to  cultivate 
the  arts  he  had  seen  practised  at  Thebes  and  Babylon, 
and  by  practice  he  became  more  perfect  than  their 
inventors.  Trade  stimulated  production  ;  increased 
demands  increased  the  supply,  created  new  needs,  new 
capacities,  new  arts.  Phoenicia  became  celebrated  for 
her  own  manufactures.  Her  purple,  her  ivor)',  the 
metals  wrought  by  her  sons,  the  coin  circulated  by  her 
merchants,  were  known  over  the  East.  And  so,  while 
the  Assyrians  became  **  the  Romans  of  Asia,"  the  Phoe- 
nicians became  the  Englishmen  of  the  ancient  world, 
seeking  everywhere  a  market,  and  seldom  finding  the 
search  unprofitable. t 

The  Phoenicians  were  thorough  men  of  business, 
followed  commerce  with  the  single-hearted  devotion  of 
the  Semite.  With  an  almost  sublime  genius,  every- 
thing subordinated  to  the  supreme  interests  of  trade. 
They  were  genuine  Philistines,  in  the  modern  sense,  de- 
vout as  a  matter  and  means  of  business,  but  merciless  to 

*  Herod.,  i.  i,  iii.  136,  "  Odys.,"  xv.  415  ff. 

t  Asto  Phoenician  trade,  see  Movers'  "Das  Phonizische  Alter- 
thum,"  pt.  iii.  Duncker  gives  an  admirable  summary  of  Movers' 
results,  "Geschichte  des  Alterthums,"  ii.  pp.  192  ff.,  4th  ed. 


254 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 


ideal  and  unremunerative  aims.  Tliey  were  wealthy  in 
gods,  did  them  all  manner  of  service,  clean  and  unclean, 
cruel,  voluptuous,  costly,  built  temples  and  altars,  inscri- 
bed no  end  of  votive  tablets.  They  scrupulously  carried 
their  deities  in  their  ships,  spared  no  expense  to  pro- 
pitiate the  powers  that  promote  trade.  Their  colonies 
can  be  traced  through  the  islands  and  along  the  coasts  of 
Greece  by  the  gods,  myths,  rites,  and  modes  of  worship 
they  left  behind.  They  turned,  too,  the  arts  and  inven- 
tions of  other  lands  to  unexpected  commercial  uses. 
In  Egypt  and  Babylon  men  had  early  learned  to  express 
and  communicate  their  thoughts  by  rude  pictures.  In 
both  the  pictorial  had  grown  into  a  symbolical  writing 
but  had  ceased  in  neither  to  be  sacred  or  sacerdotal. 
Phoenicia  adopted  the  Egyptian  method,  which  was 
incomparably  the  more  perfect,  simplified  it,  and  made 
it  fit  for  general  use.*  The  signs  which  priests  had 
held  sacred,  merchants  made  common,  and  emplo3^ed 
on  both  their  tariff  and  votive  tablets.  And  so,  when 
Tyre  and  Sidon  had  become  the  mothers  of  many  cities, 
they  could  speak  to  their  daughters  in  signs  that,  though 
inaudible,  were  as  significant  as  spoken  words.  But 
the  merchant  needed  a  medium  of  exchange  as  well  as 
of  speech  with  the  distant ;  measures,  too,  for  his  goods 
and  weights  for  his  wares.  These  he  found  in  Babylon, 
and  soon  set  in  as  extensive   circulation  as  his  alpha- 


*  See  De  Rouge,  "  Memoire  sur  TOrigine  Egyptienne  de  I'Alpha- 
bet  Phenicien,"  1874.  De  Rouge  (p.  108)  supposes  that  the  Phoe- 
nicians appropriated  and  developed  their  alphabet  about  the  nine- 
teenth century  B.C.  If  so,  they  must  have  been  long  before  in 
intimate  relations  with  the  Egyptians,  and  must  by  this  time  have 
had  an  extensive  commerce  and  highly  developed  intelligence. 


THE  RA  CES  IN  CIVILIZA  TION.  255 

betic  signs,  and  to  as  good  purpose."*  The  Phoenician, 
indeed,  devoted  his  energies  to  commerce  with  splendid 
persistence  and  success,  and  made  the  cultures  and 
discoveries  as  well  as  the  products  and  the  needs  of 
other  lands  contribute  to  his  great  end. 

The  Phoenician  was  no  conscious  benefactor  of  man. 
He  was  too  good  a  Philistine  to  think  of  more  than 
profit  to  himself.  But  he  has  none  the  less  grandly- 
served  the  cause  of  humanity.  He  awakened  the 
Greeks  to  commerce ;  taught  them  the  industrial  arts, 
opened  to  their  imaginations  the  wonderlands  of  the 
East,  stimulated  their  intellects  with  strange  thoughts 
and  new  problems,  and  enriched  their  mythology  with 
some  of  the  most  poetic  elements  it  contained.  The 
Phoenician  had  no  literary  genius.  He  was  wealthy  in 
cosmogonies,  in  tablets  inscribed  to  the  honor  of  his 
gods,  in  the  annals  of  his  city  or  his  trade,  but  a 
literature  in  the  proper  sense  he  had  none,t  certain  sus- 
picious fragments  preserved  in  Eusebius  but  helping  to 
show  the  shameful  intellectual  poverty  of  our  ancient 
Philistine.  Yet  this  illiterate  people  supplied  the  world 
with  the  few  and  simple  but  wonderful  signs  that  made 
both  ancient  and  modern  literature  possible. $    Though 

*  Duncker  places  the  beginning  of  the  trade  with  Babylon  about 
2000  B.C.,  basing  his  conjecture  on  the  current  use  of  the  Babylon- 
ian weights  and  measures  in  Syria  in  the  sixteenth  century 
("Geschichte  des  Alterthums,"  ii.  192,  4th  ed.). 

t  But  see  Movers,  "  Phonizier,"  i.  cc.  iii.  iv.  Cf.  Renan,  "  Hist, 
des  Lang.  Semit.,"  188  ff. 

X  Lenormant's  "  Essai  sur  la  Propagation  de  I'Alphabet  Phe'ni- 
cien  "  now  enables  us  to  trace,  so  far  as  it  has  been  published,  the 
diffusion  of  the  Phoenician  letters  through  the  ancient  world,  and 
the  many  changes  they  underwent  in  their  travels.  M.  L.  thinks 
this  great  Phoenician  invention  branched  almost  simultaneously 


256  THE  RA  CES  IN  CI  VI LIZ  A  TION. 

the  Phoenician  had  been  a  nomad,  he  was  the  first  to  be- 
come a  mariner.  Perhaps  these  two  are  not  so  great 
contrasts  as  they  look.  The  child  of  the  desert  is  by  the 
very  necessities  of  his  life  a  wanderer,  over  vast  plains, 
too,  where  unless  he  can  guide  his  feet  by  the  stars  of 
heaven  he  cannot  find  his  way  to  a  place  of  life  and 
rest.  Place  him  on  a  rock  by  the  sea,  and  the  sea  is 
sure  to  become  to  him  in  time  like  another  desert,  to 
be  explored  for  wealth,  to  be  traversed  with  goods  and 
for  profit,  with  the  way  over  it  marked  by  the  old  lights 
that  had  guided  his  path  across  the  great  sand-ocean. 
And  so  the  once  nomadic  but  now  seafaring  Phoenicians, 
who  had,  too,  been  awhile  among  the  famed  astrologers 
of  Babylon,  turned  with  unerring  instinct  to  the  little 
star  at  the  pole,  and  steered  their  course  by  it,  while 
the  Greeks,  fascinated  by  the  brilliance  of  the  Great 
Bear,  never  reached  the  accuracy  in  nautical  astronomy 
of  their  masters  in  navigation.  And  the  people  who 
conquered  the  secret  of  the  sea  made  a  conquest  of  the 
greatest  moment  for  humanity.  It  marked  the  hour 
when  man's  victory  over  Nature,  and  his  conscious 
fellowship  with  man  the  world  over  became  not  only 

out  in  five  directions,  forming  five  currents  of  derivation,  each  with 
its  special  subdivisions.  The  five  trunks  are  :  i.  The  Semitic, 
which  divides  into  two  families,  Hebrew-Samaritan  and  Aramean, 

2.  The  central  trunk,  embracing  Greece,  Asia  Minor,  and  Italy. 

3.  The  western  trunk,  the  Spanish  aborigines.  4.  The  northern, 
the  German  and  Scandinavian  runes,  5.  The  Indo-Homerite 
trunk,  which  has  a  greater  number  of  derivations  than  any  other. 
Antiquity  was  divided  as  to  the  nation  which  invented  commerce, 
but  not  as  to  the  inventor  of  the  alphabet.  Lucan,  "  Phars.,"  iii. 
V.  220,  224.  Pliny,  "  H.  Nat,"  v.  12,  13.  The  purpose  of  a  mi- 
nuter account  of  the  Phoenician  trade,  with  its  manifold  agencies 
and  extensive  ramifications,  has  been  abandoned  with  regret. 


THE  RA  CES  IN  CIVILlZA  TION.  257 

possible,  but  sure.  It  prepared  the  way  for  a  civiliza- 
tion which  should  make  the  wealth  and  intelligence  of 
each  land  the  common  property  of  all.  But  the  end 
was  still  distant.  The  conqueror  was  not  the  crowned. 
Phoenicia,  indeed,  prospered,  but  her  prosperity  was  too 
commercial  to  live.  She  evoked  the  enterprise  and 
genius  of  Greece,*  and  then  could  not  live  in  their 
presence.  She  stimulated  and  then  fell  under  the  might 
of  Rome.  Her  colonies  grew  up  all  along  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean,  but  only  to  fade  before  the  richer 
civilizations  they  had  fostered.  Yet  she  did  not  die  till 
she  had  proved  how  commerce  could  enrich,  unify,  refine, 
and  civilize  man.  Her  discoveries  became  the  property 
of  the  race,  so  incorporated  with  its  being  as  to  make 
its  thews  brawnier,  its  life  more  persistent  and  exten- 
sive. If  certain  of  them  were  lost,  the  memory  of  their 
existence  did  not  perish,  and  their  author  remained  for 
after  ages  a 

"Pilot  of  the  purple  twilight,  dropping  down  with  costly  bales." 

But  in  spite  of  their  differences,  the  Assyrian  and  the 
Phoenician  civilizations  were  thoroughly  Semitic.  They 
were  simple,  sensuous,  un-ideal,  created  by  men  of 
narrow  aims,  but  intense  purposes.  Their  good  was 
material  rather  than  spiritual.  They  were  haunted  by 
no  visions  of  the  beautiful,  of  a  world  too  ideal  to  be 

*  It  is  not  possible  to  discuss  here  the  question  of  Phoenician 
influence  on  Greece.  Mr.  Gladstone  ("  Juventus  Mundi,"  pp.  118 
-144)  has  discussed  it  from  its  own  peculiar  standpoint.  M.  Len« 
ormant  has  an  interesting  €tude  on  the  Phoenician  settlements  in 
Greece,  in  his  "  Premieres  Civilizations,"  vol.  ii.  One  thing  is 
certain;  while  Egypt  may  on  some  sides  have  been  more  influential 
— as  in  architecture — Phoenicia  was  more  powerful  on  others, 
Laving  been  the  means  of  introducnig  Greece  to  Egypt 

17 


258  THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION-, 

realized.  Nature  was  to  them  too  dead  to  speak  with 
the  voices  the  poet  can  hear,  to  be  full  of  the  shapes 
the  artist  can  see.  And  so  in  art  as  in  poetry  they  were 
uncreative.  In  architecture  the  Assyrian  seemed  great, 
but  it  was  as  a  builder  rather  than  as  an  architect.  The 
Phoenician,  again,  had  no  sculpture,  no  native  architec- 
ture. Egypt  and  Babylon  were  eminent  in  architectural 
genius,  and  have  left,  especially  the  first,  remains  that 
excite  in  us  a  wonder  akin  to  awe.  But  the  Phoenicians 
could  only  imitate  the  works  of  their  ancient  neighbors,* 
and  did  not  imitate  them  well.  They  could  be  extravag- 
ant and  gorgeous  after  the  ostentatious  manner  of  the 
genuine  Philistine,  but  could  not  conceive  or  embody 
the  beautiful.  Herodotos  admired  and  minutely 
described  the  monuments  of  Egypt  and  Babylon,  but 
the  only  Phoenician  temple  he  condescended  to  notice 
was  that  of  Melkarth  in  Tyre,  and  the  only  thing  about 
it  he  mentions  is  the  number  of  rich  offerings,  especially 
two  pillars,  "  one  of  pure  gold,  the  other  of  emerald, 
shining  with  great  brilliancy  at  night."t  At  first  sight 
this  poverty  in  art  may  appear  strange.  The  Phoenician 
was  a  famed  handicraftsman,  a  cunning  worker  in  metals, 
woods,  ivory,  a  maker  of  the  ornaments  the  rude  tribes 
loved  to  buy  and  he  to  sell.  But  he  was  too  good  an 
artisan  to  be  a  good  artist.  Art  is  work  done  for  eter- 
nity ;  work  for  the  most  material  things  of  time  cannot 
be  art.  What  is  made  for  the  market  is  not  meant  to 
embody  ideal  truth.  And  so  the  artisan  is  no  artist,  is 
imitative,  not  imaginative,  a  copyist,  not  a  creator.  The 
Phoenician,  too  industrial  to  be  ideal,  dreamed  not  of 
the  art  that  could  make  the  dumb  stone  the  imperish- 
able expression  of  things  unseen. 

*  Renan,  "Mission  de  Ph^nicie,"  p.  825.  t  ii.  44. 


THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZATION. 


259 


The  rise  of  the  first  Semitic  civilizations,  sensuous 
and  un-ideal  as  they  were,  was  a  decisive  event  in  the 
history  of  man.  What  the  Turanian  had  begun  the 
Semite  carried 'forward,  and  passed  on  to  the  Indo- 
European.  Greece  received  the  ideal  and  spiritual  ele- 
ments the  East  had  to  give,  assimilated,  transfigured, 
and  then  embodied  them  in  the  perfect  forms  she  alone 
had  the  genius  to  create.  Greece  idealized,  exalted 
the  individual,  made  man  conscious  of  the  glory  of 
manhood.  She  gave  us  our  models  and  ideals  of  the 
beautiful,  interpreted  for  us  man  and  nature  as  they 
exist  to  the  imagination.  "  In  its  poets  and  orators,  its 
historians  and  philosophers,"  says  Hegel,*  "Greece 
cannot  be  conceived  from  a  central  point,  unless  one 
brings,  as  a  key  to  the  understanding  of  it,  an  insight 
into  the  ideal  forms  of  sculpture,  and  regards  the  images 
of  statesmen  and  philosophers,  as  well  as  epic  and 
dramatic  heroes,  from  the  artistic  point  of  view ;  for. 
those  who  act,  as  well  as  those  who  create  and  think, 
have  in  those  beautiful  days  of  Greece  this  plastic  char- 
acter. They  are  great  and  free,  and  have  grown  up  on 
the  soil  of  their  own  individuality,  creating  themselves 
out  of  themselves,  and  moulding  themselves  to  what 
they  were  and  willed  to  be.  The  age  of  Perikles  was 
rich  in  such  characters :  Perikles  himself,  Pheidias,  Plato, 
above  all  Sophokles,  Thukydides  also,  Xenophon  and 
Sokrates,  each  in  his  own  order,  without  the  perfection 
of  one  being  diminished  by  that  of  others.  They  are 
ideal  artists  of  themselves,  cast  each  in  one  flawless 
mould — works  of  art  which  stand  before  us  as  an 
immortal  presentment  of  the  gods." 

*  "  iEsthetik,"  vol.  ii.  p.  377.  The  translation  here  given  is  Mr 
Pater's  "  Studies  in  the  Hist  of  the  Renaissance,"  192. 


26o  THE  RACES  IN  CIVILIZA TION. 

While  Greece  perfected  the  free,  individual,  and  ideal 
elements  in  the  ancient  civilizations,  Rome  perfected  the 
political.  If  the  first  was  the  heir  of  Egypt,  Babylon, 
and  Phoenicia,  the  second  was  the  heir  of  Assyria. 
Rome  deified  law,  embodied  authority  and  justice,  re- 
alized political  unity.  A  Roman  has  described  for  us 
her  mission,  and  great  as  he  conceives  it  to  have  been 
we  may  well  allow  that  it  was  still  greater. 

"  Excudent  alii  spirantia  mollius  aera, 
Credo  equidem,  vivos  ducent  de  marmore  voltus; 
Orabunt  causas  melius,  ccElique  meatus 
Describent  radio,  et  surgentia  sidera  dicent : 
Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento ; 
Hae  tibi  erunt  artes ;  pacisque  imponere  morem, 
Parcere  subjectis,  et  debellare  superbos."* 

We  can  follow  our  subject  no  further.  Enough  has 
been  written  to  show  the  relation  of  ancient  and  modern 
.civilization,  of  the  people  to  the  culture  it  creates.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  the  first  shall  be  last  and  the  last  first. 
The  peoples  earliest  were  not  the  most  perfectly  civilized. 
Many  nations  had  to  rise  and  fall  before  the  elements  of 
a  rich  and  many-sided  social  being  were  evolved.  And 
the  more  varied  its  elements  the  more  permanent  will  be 
its  existence.  The  early  eminence  of  the  Greeks  had, 
perhaps,  much  to  do  with  their  premature  decay.  The 
greater  strength  of  Rome  might  be  due  in  part  to  her 
slower  and  more  concentrated  growth.  The  peoples 
most  distant  from  the  ancient  cultures  have  not  lost  by 
having  been  the  last  to  be  civilized.  They  were  more 
mature  when  touched  by  the  cultured  peoples  and  the 
culture  that  touched  them  was  richer,  more  plastic  and 

♦  '♦  iEneid,"  vi.  848-894. 


THE  RACES  IN  civilization:  26 1 

powerful.  And  now  they,  too,  are  working  for  the 
future,  helping  to  form  the  men  that  are  to  be.  "  Gen- 
erations are  as  the  Days  of  toilsome  mankind ;  Death 
and  Birth  are  the  vesper  and  the  matin  bells  that  sum- 
mon Mankind  to  sleep,  and  to  rise  refreshed  for  new 
advancement.  What  the  father  has  made  the  son  can 
make  and  enjoy  ;  but  has  also  work  of  his  own  appointed 
him.  Thus  all  things  wax  and  roll  onwards  ;  arts,  estab- 
lishments, opinions,  nothing  is  completed,  but  ever  com- 
pleting  Find  Mankind   where   thou   wilt, 

thou  findest  it  in  living  movement,  in  progress  faster  or 
slower :  the  Phoenix  soars  aloft,  hovers  with  outstreched 
wings,  filling  Earth  with  her  music ;  or,  as  now,  she 
sinks,  and  with  spheral  swan-song  immolates  herself  in 
flame,  that  she  may  soar  the  higher  and  sing  the  clear- 


*  Carlyle,  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  bk.  iii.  chap.  viL 


262  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION, 


PART  III. 

THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION, 

I. 

Ty^ /"HILE  the  collective  human  race  has  been  as  a  rule 
religious,  Man  has  exhibited  in  his  religions  every 
variety  of  type  and  degree  of  difference  lying  between 
the  rudest  Fetichism  and  the  most  refined  and  abstract 
Monotheism.  They  have  embodied  ideas  at  once  so 
antithetic  and  akin,  that  religion  can  be  made  a  point 
specifically  distinguishing  savage  from  civilized  races,  or 
a  generic  characteristic  of  man  as  man.  Here  the 
object  of  worship  is  a  stone,  or  tree,  or  rude  charm  ; 
there,  the  high  and  holy  One  who  inhabiteth  eternity. 
In  one  place  the  worship  has  been  glad  and  lightsome, 
has  loved  the  festive  garland,  the  mystic  dance,  and  the 
exultant  hymn ;  in  another  it  has  been  fearful  and 
sombre,  seeking  by  pain  and  penance,  by  human  or  animal 
sacrifices,  to  propitiate  angry  deities.  Now  it  has  been 
a  simple  act  of  devotion  which  the  patriarch  or  father 
could  perform,  and  again,  an  extensive  and  burdensome 
ceremonial,  sacred  and  significant  in  the  minutest  par- 
ticulars, which  an  initiated  and  consecrated  priest  was 
needed  to  celebrate.  Sometimes  the  simplicity  has 
been  carried  so  far  as  to  seem  Atheism  to  a  foreigner 
accustomed  to  a  more  elaborate  ritual.  At  others,  the 
ceremonialism  has  determined  the  very  social  and  polit- 
ical constitution,  and  made   the  nation   appear  not  so 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  263 

much  a  people  with  a  priesthood  as  a  priesthood  with  a 
people.  The  varieties  are  so  many,  tliat  classification  is 
here  peculiarly  difficult,  and  the  difficulty  is  increased  by 
inquirers  failing  to  agree  on  a  principle  of  division.  The 
theologian,  ethnographer,  comparative  mythologist,  his- 
torian of  opinion,  has  each  a  classification  suited  to  his 
own  province,  inapplicable  to  any  other.  Only  one  thing 
is  clear — Religion  is  as  universal  as  man,  but  as  varied 
in  type  as  the  races  and  nations  of  men.* 

The  universality  admits  of  but  one  explanation — the 
universal  is  the  necessary.  What  man  has  everywhere 
done,  he  could  not  but  do.  His  nature  is  creative  of 
religion,  is  possessed  of  faculties  that  make  him  relig- 
ious. Religion  is  not  an  invention  or  discovery,  but  a 
product  or  deposit,  a  growth  from  roots  fixed  deep  in 
human  nature,  springing  up  and  expanding  according 
to  necessary  laws.  No  one  discovered  sight,  or  invented 
hearing.  Man  saw  because  he  had  eyes,  heard  because 
he  had  ears :  the  sense  created  the  sensations.  Lan- 
guage, too,  is  neither  a  discovery  nor  an  invention.  It 
grew,  and  man  was  hardly  conscious  of  its  growth  ;  grew 
out  of  the  physical  ability  to  utter  sounds,  and  the  men- 
tal capacity  to  think  thoughts  which,  as  allied,  we  term 
the  faculty  of  speech.  And  so  religion  is  the  fruit  of 
faculties  given  in  our  nature,  spontaneously  acting. 
Hence  man  gets  into  religion  as  into  other  natural 
things,  the  use  of  his  senses,  his  mother  tongue,  without 
conscious  effort ;  but  to  get  out  of  it  he  has  to  use  art, 
to  reason  himself  into  an  attitude  of  watchful  antagon- 
ism at  once  to  the  tendencies  and  actions  of  his  own 
nature,  and  to  ancient  and  general  beliefs.     No  man  is 

*  Waitz,  "Anthropology,"  vol.  i.  pp.  277  ff.  (Eng.  trans.).    Ty- 
ler's *'  Primitive  Culture,"  vol.  i.  378  ff. 


264  ^-^^  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

an  atheist  by  nature  or  birth,  only  by  artifice  and  educa- 
tion, and  art  when  it  vanquishes  nature  is  not  always  a 
victor.  The  world  has  before  now  seen  a  mind  which 
had  cast  out  religion  as  worship  of  God,  introduce  a  re- 
ligion which  worshipped  man,  or  rather,  idolized  the 
memory  of  a  woman. 

Religion,  then,  as  natural,  is  universal — as  universal 
as  the  natures  which  deposit  and  realize  it.  But  the 
ver}'  reason  of  its  universality  explains  its  varieties.  The 
creative  natures  are,  while  everywhere  existing,  every- 
where varied.  Minds,  while  akin  as  minds,  are  variously 
conditioned  and  endowed.  Man,  wherever  he  thinks 
and  acts,  must  think  and  act  as  man,  obedient  to  the 
laws  built,  as  it  were,  into  his  very  nature  ;  but  his  power 
to  think  and  act  may  exhibit  the  utmost  differences  of 
quality  and  degree.  What  is  true  of  the  individuals 
composing  a  nation  is  also  true  of  the  nations  compos- 
ing the  race.  In  the  early  ages,  too,  when  states  and 
religion  were  being  formed,  there  was  nothing  to  tone 
down,  everything  to  emphasize,  local  or  family  peculi- 
arities. Mind  was  not  cosmopolitan,  but  national  or 
tribal,  and  narrowed  whatever  it  created  or  received  to 
its  own  sphere.  Hence,  the  only  religions  it  knew  were, 
not  like  the  modern,  universal,  but  tribal  or  national,  as 
distinctive  of  a  people  as  its  language  or  its  laws.  This 
limitation  and  isolation  could  not  but  produce  variety 
in  faith  and  worship,  make  the  religion  the  mirror  of 
the  family  mind  in  all  its  faculties  and  phases.  The 
distinctive  genius  of  a  race  is  always,  indeed,  liable  to 
be  weakened  or  intensified  by  the  rise  of  new,  or  a 
change  in  the  old,  conditions.  The  family  or  tribe  may 
either  absorb  or  be  absorbed  into  other  families  or 
tribes,  and  the  intermixture  may  result  in  a  new  correl- 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION-.  265 

ation  of  faculties  and  ideas,  acts  and  objects  of  worship, 
such  as  is  shown  us  by  the  peoples  who  settled  in  the 
Mesopotamian  valley,  and  founded  the  empires  that 
successively  rose  there.  A  change  in  geographical  po- 
sition may  modify  the  physical  and  psychical  qualities 
of  a  people,  and  create  a  new  order  of  thought,  and  a 
new  set  of  institutions,  just  as  the  Aryans  in  India  de- 
veloped as  immigrants  and  conquerors  religious  and 
social  systems,  which,  while  originally  like,  were  in 
their  final  form  generically  unlike,  other  Indo-European 
religions  and  polities.  Intercourse  with  friendly  peoples 
may  introduce  varieties  of  belief  and  worship,  like  those 
Bacchic  and  other  frenzied  rites  the  commerce  with 
Phoenicia  introduced  into  the  calm  and  beautiful  natur- 
alism of  Greece.  But  while  such  changes  and  relations 
may  qualify  and  complicate,  they  do  not  nullify  the  ac- 
tion of  the  national  mind.  Its  action,  expulsive,  assim- 
ilative, or  evolutionary,  goes  on  modifying  the  old, 
incorporating  the  foreign,  educing  or  producing  the  new, 
and  can  cease  only  with  the  life  of  the  people.  The 
interaction  of  the  living  intellect  and  living  faith  is  con- 
tinual, every  change  in  the  one  being  answered  by  a 
corresponding  change  in  the  other. 

What  may  be  termed  religious  faculty,  or  genius,  has 
been  the  characteristic  endowment  of  certain  peoples. 
The  Semitic  and  Indo-European  families  have  been  in 
this,  as  in  ever)'  other  respect,  highly,  though  not  equal- 
ly, gifted.  The  former  has  been  in  religion  the  more 
creative  and  conservative,  the  latter  the  more  receptive 
and  progressive  race.  The  Hebrew  faith,  in  its  earlier 
Mosaic  and  latter  Judaic  phases,  Christianity  and  Islam, 
are  of  Semitic  origin  ;  Zoroastrism,  Brahmanism,  and 
Buddhism,  of  Indo-European.      But  however  splendid 


266  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION, 

these  creations,  they  by  no  means  exhaust  the  productive 
religious  genius  of  the  two  families.  Many  other 
growths  have  lived  and  died,  leaving  in  the  successive 
strata  that  mark  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations,  remains, 
now  gigantic  and  legible,  and  again,  minute  and  hardly 
decipherable.  But  the  very  least  of  the  dead  have  con- 
tributed to  develop  the  living.  The  great  religions  of 
the  world  are  like  great  rivers,  springing  from  small 
and  distant  sources,  swollen  in  their  course  by  many  a 
streamlet,  sometimes  enlarged  by  the  confluence  of 
another  far-travelled  river,  and  then  flowing  on  in 
grander  volume  under  a  new  name.  No  race  can  claim 
a  true  world-religion  as  its  own  exclusive  creation. 
Though  Christianity  rose  in  the  Semitic,  it  has  been 
made  what  it  is  by  the  Indo-European  family.  The 
stream  that  eighteen  centuries  since  started  from  its  ob- 
scure source  in  Galilee  was  very  unlike  the  river  that 
now  waters  the  many  lands  peopled  by  the  Teutonic 
and  Latin  races.  Every  nation  which  has  embraced 
Christianity  has  contributed  to  its  growth.  Race  and 
religion  have  continued  reciprocal  in  their  action.  Con- 
version has  here  been  mutual,  the  mind  modifying  the 
very  object  which  changed  it. 

The  Hebrews  may  stand  as  the  highest  example  of 
the  Semitic  religious  genius,  especially  in  its  creative 
form.  They  were  as  a  nation  always  insignificant, 
indeed  almost  politically  impotent.  Their  country  was 
small,  little  larger  at  its  best  than  a  fourth  of  England, 
and  its  sea-board  was  almost  always  held  by  tribes  either 
hostile  or  independent.  Their  history  was  a  perpetual 
struggle  for  national  existence,  first  against  the  native 
tribes,  then  against  foreign  empires.  Egypt,  Chaldaea, 
Assyria,  Persia,  Greece,  and  Rome,  were  successively 


THE  RA  CES  IN  RELIGION.  267 

either  their  masters  or  protectors,  and  their  often 
threatened  national  existence  was  at  last  trampled  out 
by  the  legions  of  Titus  and  Hadrian,  and  themselves 
sent  to  wander  over  the  earth  as  a  strange  example  of 
a  destroyed  nation  but  an  indestructible  people.  With- 
out the  commercial  or  colonizing  energy  of  their 
Phoenician  kinsmen,  without  the  architectural  genius 
and  patient  industry  which  built  the  monuments  and 
cities  of  Egypt,  without  the  ambition  and  courage  which 
raised  their  Assyrian  brethren  to  empire  and  a  sov- 
ereign civilization,  without  the  poetic  and  speculative 
genius -of  the  Greeks,  without  the  martial  and  political 
capacity  of  the  Romans,  the  politically  unimportant  and 
despised  Hebrews  have  excelled  these  gifted  nations, 
singly  and  combined,  in  religious  faculty  and  in  the 
power  exercised  through  religion  on  mankind.  The 
Book  which  has  been  incontestably  the  mightiest  in  the 
world  for  good  is  the  Book  which  embodies  the  religious 
thoughts  and  aspirations,  faith  and  hopes,  of  this 
ancient  and  in  other  respects  almost  despicable  people. 
The  Hindus  are  our  own  kinsmen.  The  blood  in  their 
veins  was  as  pure  Indo-European  as  ours,  perhaps  much 
purer,  when  on  the  banks  of  the  Indus  or  the  Sarasvati 
they  sang  their  old  Vedic  hymns.  But  these  hymns 
can  never  be  to  us  or  our  sons  what  the  Psalms  of  the 
Semitic  Hebrews  have  been  for  centuries  to  the 
noblest  Indo-European  nations.  No  Aryan  faith  was 
more  spiritual  or  exalted  than  the  Zoroastrian,  but 
while  Moses  and  the  Prophets  have  been  living 
religious  forces,  studied  and  revered  alike  by  the 
simplest  and  most  cultured  intellects  of  the  West,  the 
Avesta  ceased  ages  since  to  be  a  religious  power,  save 
to  a  scattered  remnant  of  its  ancient  people,  and  is  now 


268  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION 

only  a  study  for  a  few  scholars  curious  as  to  the 
religions  and  languages  of  mankind.  In  that  Hebrew 
Literature,  which  has  become  the  sacred  literature  of 
our  most  civilized  races,  and  made  the  very  blood  and 
bone  of  their  religious  life,  there  must  be  something 
profoundly 'universal  and  quickening,  which  finds  and 
satisfies  the  deepest  spiritual  wants  of  man.  Perhaps 
the  wheel  of  time  never  brought  about  a  more  ironical 
or  more  splendid  revenge.  Egypt  is  like  her  own 
sphinx,  a  broken  and  decaying  riddle  half  buried  in  a 
wilderness  of  sand.  The  stately  pride  and  power  of 
Assyria  lie  buried  under  the  mounds  that  mark .  where 
her  cities  once  stood.  Greece  is  living  Greece  no 
more,  and  Rome  a  strange  scene  of  religious  imbecility 
and  confusion,  political  anarchy  and  incompleteness. 
But  Israel,  transformed  indeed  and  re-named,  but  in  all 
that  constituted  its  essence  and  right  to  existence,  Israel 
still  lives  in  and  guides  the  conscience  of  Christendom. 
So  grandly  have  the  weak  things  of  the  world  confound- 
ed the  things  that  were  mighty. 

There  has  been  more  variety  of  religious  genius  in 
the  Indo-European  than  in  the  Semitic  family.  It  has 
exhibited  indeed  a  single  generic  type,  but  with  many 
specific  differences.  As  the  finest  example  of  religious 
genius  this  family  affords,  the  Teutonic  peoples  may  be 
selected,  though  their  action  in  the  religious  province 
has  not  been  so  much  creative  as  receptive.  The 
Teuton  has  indeed  been  in  some  respects  more  religious 
than  the  Hebrew.  His  religious  life  has  not  been  so 
concentrated  and  stern,  has  been  more  diffused  and 
genial,  but  for  this  very  reason  it  has  blossomed  into  a 
broader  and  sweeter  and  more  human  culture.  And  so 
Teutonic  has  not  been  like  Judaic  religion,  iconoclastic. 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  269 

but  has  loved  the  Fine  Arts,  Music  and  Poetry,  Archi- 
tecture and  Painting,  has  not  been  conservative  and 
race-bound,  but  progressive  and  missionar3\  The 
Teutonic  peoples  have  in  their  energies  and  enterprises, 
wars  and  ambitions,  been  governed  by  ideals,  have, 
because  inspired  by  these,  led  the  van  of  the  world's 
intellectual  progress,  fought  the  battles  of  freedom,  and 
carried  light  and  culture  and  commerce  to  the  savage 
races  of  the  earth.  And  so,  while  they  have  not,  like 
the  Hebrews,  created  a  religion,  they  have  been  created 
by  one.  The  Christianity  they  received  they  have  so 
assimilated  as  to  become  its  noblest  representatives. 

The  Chinese,  again,  may  be  selected  as  a  contrast  to 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Teuton.  They  stand,  indeed,  out- 
side the  two  families  with  which  we  are  here  concerned, 
and  are  noticed  simply  as  a  people  singularly  deficient 
in  religious  faculty.  Their  countr}^  is  extensive  and 
rich,  almost  inexhaustible  in  fertility  and  mineral 
wealth.  They  are  a  gifted  race,  ingenious,  inventive 
yet  imitative,  patient,  industrious,  frugal.  Their 
civilization  is  ancient,  their  literary  capacity  considera- 
ble, their  classics  receive  an  almost  religious  reverence. 
But  this  people  has  a  so  attenuated  religious  faculty  or 
genius,  that  it  can  hardly  be  said  ever  to  have  known 
religion,  at  least  as  Semitic  and  Indo  European  peoples 
understand  it.  Their  notions  of  deity  are  so  formless 
and  fluid  that  it  can  be  argued,  just  as  one  interprets 
their  speech,  either  that  they  are  theists  or  atheists. 
They  reverence  humanity  as  typified,  not  in  the  endless 
promise  and  hope  of  the  future,  but  in  the  completed 
characters  and  achievements  of  the  past.  Their  piety 
is  filial,  their  worship  ancestral.  There  are,  indeed, 
three  established  religions;    but,   not  to  speak  of  an 


270 


7'HE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 


advice  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  an}'-  one  of  them 
given  by  a  late  emperor  to  his  people,  two  would 
hardly  be  classed  as  such  in  any  other  country  than 
China,  while  the  third  is  a  religion  imported  from  India, 
and  so  depraved  by  the  change  that  the  Buddhism  of 
the  civilized  Chinese  stands  between  that  of  Tartary 
and  Thibet.  And  so  this  gifted  race,  deprived  of  the 
ideals  that  could  alone  urge  it  forward,  has  for  centuries 
moved  in  a  cycle  which  gave  movement  without 
progress,  and  has,  by  turning  back  to  a  dead  worship 
of  a  dead  past,  ceased  to  advance  along  the  not  always 
straight  line  which  offers  alike  to  the  individual  and  the 
nation  the  only  path  to  perfection. 

The  form  under  which  the  religious  faculty  or  genius 
of  a  people  works  is  twofold,  the  diffused  and  the 
concentrated,  as  a  tendency  common  to  the  collective 
nation,  or  as  a  force  embodied  in  a  great  personality. 
The  one  represents  the  faculty  in  its  stationary  and  con- 
servative, the  other  in  its  reformatory  and  progressive 
action.  Religions  are  never  changed  or  reformed  by 
the  collective  and  involuntary,  but  by  the  individual  and 
conscious  will.  The  people  without  a  great  religious 
personality  is  without  distinctive  religious  genius,  there- 
fore, without  a  great  religion,  can  only  develop  one  rel- 
ative, particular,  exclusive,  that  may  grow  with  the 
national  greatness,  but  is  certain  to  participate  in  its 
decay  and  death.  Only  where  the  genius  is  personalized 
can  it  become  creative  of  a  religion  able  to  transcend 
the  limits  of  race.  The  old  sublime  faith  of  Iran,  which 
gave  to  Judaism  some  of  its  finest  moral  and  spiritual 
elements,  sprang  from  Zoroaster.  The  Hindu  Sakya 
Muni  created  the  religion  that  seems  like  the  blackness 
of  despair  to  us,  yet  has  helped  so  many  millions  of 


THE  RA  CES  IN  RELIGION.  2  7 1 

Aryan  and  Turanian  men  to  struggle  through  self-denial 
to  annihilation.  At  the  source  of  Judaism  stands  the 
majestic  form  of  Abraham,  and  the  most  splendid  series 
of  religious  personalities  known  to  history,  some  name- 
less, some  named,  like  Moses  and  Elijah,  Isaiah  and 
Jeremiah,  binds  him  to  Jesus.  Christianity  has  its 
Christ,  Islam  its  Mahomet.  Neither  Jahveh  nor  Allah 
can  live  in  human  faith  without  his  prophet.  In  lands 
where  the  prophet  was  unknown,  or  his  voice  unheard, 
the  religions  have  been  local,  national,  such  as  the 
genius  of  Greece  might  adorn  but  could  not  vivify,  the 
power  of  Rome  exalt  but  not  universalize. 

We  are  not  here  concerned  with  any  question  as  to 
the  origin  of  religion  or  religious  ideas.  Were  we,  our 
first  work  would  be  to  analyze  and  define  the  religious 
faculty.  To  do  so  would  be  to  raise  some  of  the  deepest 
philosophical  and  psychological  questions.  Is  it  a 
simple  or  complex  faculty?  Does  it  reach  its  object  by 
intuition,  or  does  it  proceed  by  induction  ?  To  what 
extent  and  in  what  order  does  it  call  into  exercise  or 
stand  rooted  in  the  conscience,  or  the  emotions,  or  the 
intellect,  severally  or  collectively?  In  other  words, 
does  religion  proceed  from  the  dictates  of  the  practical 
reason,  a  feeling  of  dependence,  or  an  act  of  the  intel- 
lect searching  after  a  first  or  final  cause  ?  These  are, 
indeed,  fundamental  problems  in  the  philosophy  of  re- 
ligion, but  they  belong  to  an  earlier  stage  than  the  one 
we  are  now  concerned  with.  Our  purpose  is  not  to 
inquire  as  to  the  origin  of  our  religious  ideas,  but  to 
study  the  action  and  products  of  the  religious  faculty  in 
our  two  races,  to  exhibit,  on  the  one  hand,  their  distinc- 
tive religious  conceptions,  and,  on  the  other,  the  elements 
or  principles  they  contribute  to  a  Catholic  and  universal 
religion. 


272  THE  RA  CES  IN  RELIGION. 

It  is,  perhaps,  better  in  this  connection  to  discover 
and  exhibit  the  differences  than  to  inquire  into  their 
causes.  These  may  become  more  apparent  when  our 
inquiry  is  further  advanced,  and  is  concerned  with  the 
interpretative  and  constructive  thought  of  the  two  races. 
M.  Renan  tried,  indeed,  to  solve  the  psychological  prob- 
lem by  attributing  to  the  Semites  a  monotheistic  instinct, 
which  a  nomadic  life  in  the  monotonous  Syrian  and 
Arabian  deserts  had  evoked  in  certain  branches  and 
intensified  into  a  monotheistic  enthusiasm.  This  instinct 
not  only  explained  their  character,  but  defined  their 
mission.  They  existed  to  create  monotheism.  Their 
genius  was  monotonous  as  well  as  monotheistic,  loved 
the  simple,  hated  the  manifold,  was  anti-mythological, 
intolerant,  incurious,  and  therefore  unscientific.  Sim- 
plicity, the  antithesis  of  the  Indo-European  variety, 
epitomized  the  Semitic  character.  Their  instinct  was 
not  genius.  Monotheism  was  as  it  were  the  minimum 
of  religion,  the  creation  of  a  people  that  had  few  re- 
ligious needs.* 

Now,  the  word  instinct  explains  nothing,  needs  to  be 
itself  explained.  In  a  scientific  discussion  it  is  no  reason, 
only  an  apology  for  one.  And  here  the  psychology  was 
not  simply  bad,  but  useless,  was  used  to  explain  a  thing 
that  did  not  exist.  Scholars  affirmed  and  proved  poly- 
theistic tendencies  in  all  the  branches  of  the  race ;  so 
strong,  indeed,  in  the  very  branch  which  gave  mono- 
theism to  the  world  as  to  involve  it  in  ceaseless  conflicts. 
Yet  there  was  this  much  truth  in  the  picture — Mono- 

*  M.  Kenan's  "  Histoire  des  Langues  Semitiques,"  liv.  i.  ch.  i. ; 
liv.  V.  ch.  ii.  §  vi.  Also  "  Nouvelles  Considerations  sur  le  Carac- 
t^re  Ge'ne'r.  des  Peuples  Semit.,"  "  Tournal  Asiatique,"  xiii.,  5th 
series,  pp.  214-282;  417-460. 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION;  273 

theism  was  the  creation  of  the  Semitic  genius,  the  finest 
blossom  of  its  spirit.  Nothing  was  more  alien  to  the 
Indo-European  mind.  The  unities  it  groped  after  and 
reached  were  not  personal,  but  abstract  conceptions, 
metaphysical  like  the  Brahma  of  India,  or  ethical  like 
the  TO  dyaOov  of  Greece.  Greek  genius  intensified  would 
have  produced  more  splendid  tragedies  than  those  of 
-.'Eschylos  or  Sophokles,  a  sublimer  philosophy  than 
Plato's,  not  proclaimed  a  religion  with  "  there  is  no  God 
but  God  "  as  its  gospel.*  The  Hebrew  genius  enlarged, 
clarified,  had  only  excelled  on  its  own  province,  not 
invaded  the  Hellenic.  The  races  are,  indeed,  contrasts, 
move  in  different  orbits,  yet  each  as  complementary  to 
the  other,  like  lights  made  to  rule  the  two  sections  of 
human  thought.  If  the  Greek  has  made  our  literary, 
the  Hebrew  has  made  our  religious  classics,  and  the 
creators  of  works  so  different  could  hardly  be  similarly 
endowed. 


11. 


The  discussion  must  now  become  historical,  an  inquiry 
into  the  fundamental  differences  in  the  religious  ideas 
of  the  two  races.  The  cardinal  and  fontal  difference  is 
this — the  mode  of  conceiving  and  denoting  deity.  The 
distinctively  Semitic  names  of  God  express,  as  is  now 
well  known,  moral  or  metaphysical  qualities  and  rela- 
tions ;  the  Indo-European  denote  natural  objects,  phe- 


♦  Steinthal,  "  Zeitschrif t  fiir  Volkerpsychol.  und  Sprachwissen- 
Bchaft,"  vol.  i.  p.  343. 

18 


274 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 


nomena,  and  powers.*  Language  is  here  a  faithful 
mirror  of  mind  \  the  word  speaks  as  the  thought  had 
conceived. 


I. 


The  term  for  God  common  to  all  the  Semitic  family 
is  El^  the  strong,  the  mighty.  It  often  occurs  in  the 
Bible,  and  is  applied  both  to  Jahvehf  and  heathen 
deities.1:  It  denoted  the  chief  deity  of  Byblus,§  is  found 
in  the  Babylonian ||  and  HimyariticIF  inscriptions,  in 
Syria,  Phoenicia,  Canaan,  and  North  Arabia.**  It  is 
known  in  a  simple  or  compound  form  to  all  the  Semitic 
dialects,  and  is  equally  significant  as  an  indication  of 
their  original  unity  and  the  conception  the  united  family 
had  of  God.  Alongside  it  may  be  placed  the  Hebrew 
Eloah,  mostly  used  in  the  plural  Elohlm,  the  Arabic 
Ildh,  with  the  article  Allah,  which  are  not,  indeed, 
etymologically  connected  with  El,  but  derivatives  from 
a  root  expressive  of  agitation,  fear,  and  so  denote  the 
being  who  is  feared.tt  Another  very  old  Hebrew,$$  and 

*  M.  Muller,  "  Chips,"  vol.  i.  359  ff.  "  Introduction  to  the  Sci- 
ence of  Religion,"  pp.  176  ff.  Kuenen,  "De  Godsdienst  van 
Israel,"  vol.  i.  pp.  224,  225. 

t  Josh.  xxii.  22;  Ps.  1.   I ;  Gen.  xxxi.  13;  Dan.  xi.  36. 

X  Exod.  XV.  II ;  Isa.  xliv.  10, 15 ;  xlv.  20. 

§  "  Philo.  Byb.,"  as  explained  by  Bunsen,  "  Egypt,"  iv.  187  ff. 

II  Schrader,  "  Keilinschriften  und  das  Alte  Test,"  pp.  41,  42. 

TT  Osiander,  "  Zeitschr.  der  Deuts.  Morgenl.  Gesellschaft,"  x.  61. 

**  Tiele,  "  Vergelijk.  Geschied.  van  den  Egypt,  en  Mesopot. 
Godsdiensten,"  pp.  460  ff.      Gesenius,  "  Monum.  Phoenic,"  p.  406. 

tt  Prof.  Fleischer  in  Delitzsch,  "Genesis,"  pp.  47  f.,  4th  ed. 
Kuenen,  "  Godsdienst  van  Israel,  i.  45. 

XX  Exod.  vi.  3 ;  Gen.  xvii.    i ;  xxviii.  3,  &c. 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  2f$ 

possibly  Phoenician,*  name  was  Shaddai,  the  powerful, 
which  perhaps  stood  in  some  way  connected  with  the 
Egyptian  Set  or  Seb,  In  Elyo?i,  the  Most  High,  we  have 
a  name  known  alike  to  the  Canaanites,t  Phcenicians,$ 
and  Hebrews.  §  But  one  much  more  common  is  the 
Phoenician,  Carthaginian,  Canaanitish,  Israelitish,  || 
Baal,  the  Assyrian  Bel^^  Lord,  Master,  Husband. 
Another  name,  Adon,  very  similar  in  meaning,  was  used 
by  the  Canaanites,**  Phoenicians,!!  Hebrews,$t  and  in 
the  form  Adonai  employed  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  Baal 
never  was,  to  denote  Jahveh.§§  In  the  word  Molech^ 
possibly  either  an  Ammonite||||  or  earlier  form  of  the 
Hebrew  Melech,  king,  we  have  a  name  for  God  that  ap- 
pears in  several  Semitic  dialects,  as  the  Phoenician 
Melkarth,  king  of  the  city,  BaalmelechjITIT  and  the  Assy- 

*  Bunsen  explains  the  Agrueros  of  "  Philo.  Bybl."  as  a  blun- 
dered rendering  of  Shaddai,  "Egypt,"  iv.  221-I. 

t  Gen.  xiv.  18-22. 

X  "Philo.  Bibl.,"  Bunsen,  "Egypt,"  iv.  190,  231. 

§  Ps.  xix.  2  ;  xxi.  7,  &c. 

II  Movers,  "  Relig.  der  Phonizier,"  vol.  i.  169  ff.  The  question 
raised  in  Professor  Dozy's  "  Israeliten  zu  Mecca,"  and  so  exhaust- 
ively discussed  of  late  in  Holland,  as  to  the  ancient  worship  of 
Israel  being  one,  not  of  Jahveh,  but  of  Baal,  cannot,  of  course,  be 
touched  here.  Nor  is  it  in  any  way  of  vital  moment  to  our  present 
discussion. 

If  Schrader's  "  Keilinschriften,"  80,  81.    **  Josh.  x.  i ;  Judg.  i.  5^ 

tt  Gesenius,  "  Monum.  Phoenic,"  p.  346.  %%  Josh.  iii.  13. 

§§  Exod.  iv.  10,  13;  Isa.  xl.  10,  &c.  In  Hosea,  ii.  16  (18),  Baali 
is  used  not  as  a  proper  name,  but  as  the  synonym  of  husband,  only 
with  a  sterner,  less  affectionate  sense.  Ewald  {"  Propheten,"  L 
194)  translates  biihle.  Kuenen  ( "  Godsdienst  van  Israel,"  i.  401-403) 
distinguishes  thus,  Baali  Mon  mart,  Ishi  Mori  €potix. 

nil  Whose  God  Molech  was  said  to  be.  i  Kings  xi.  27  ;  Jer. 
xlix.  1-3.     Mover's  "  Die  Phonizier,"  i.  323. 

*i\  Movers,  i.  419.     Gesenius,  "Monum.  Phoen.,"  p.  292. 


276  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION'. 

rian  gods  Malik,  Adrommelech  and  Anammelech.* 
The  national  god  of  Assyria,  Assur,  was  so  named  in  all 
likelihood  because  his  people  conceived  him  as  a  good 
being,  the  deity  giving  his  name  to  the  land  rather  than 
the  land  to  the  deity,  t  The  specific  and  distinctive 
Hebrew  name  for  God,  yahveh^  means  "  he  who  is,"| 
and  as  it  is  etymologically  explicable,  so  it  remains  re- 
ligiously significant,  only  on  Hebrew  soil  j  can  be  traced 
as  little  to  an  Assyrian  as  to  an  Egyptian  or  Phoenician 
source. §  These,  then,  common  and  distinctive  Semitic 
names  of  deity  show  that  though  the  tribal  and  national 
religions  were  distinguished  by  many  and  strongly 
marked  differences,  there  was  one  point  where  they  so 
met  as  to  reveal  their  kinship — they  conceived  God 
similarly,  attributed  to  what  was  divine  the  same  quali- 
ties and  powers. II 

*  Schrader's  "  Keilinschriften,"  65,  168.  t  lb.,  7.  8 

X  I  confess  to  have  great  difficulty  in  deciding  as  to  the  meaning 
of  Jahveh,  whether  it  means  "  he  who  is,"  "  he  who  causes  to  be," 
or  "  he  who  will  be  it," — will  possess  a  given  character,  or  mani- 
fest a  given  quality,  or  sustain  a  given  relation  to  the  person 
who  uses  the  name.  This  latter  meaning  is  developed  and 
defended  in  a  paper  of  great  learning  and  acuteness  by  Prof. 
W.  Robertson  Smith,  in  the  "British  and  Foreign  Evangelical 
Review,"  xcv.  Of  course  this  latter  view  gives  a  much  higher 
ethical  and  religious  value  to  the  name,  and  makes  it  still  more 
specific  and  distinctive  of  the  faith  of  the  people  who  used  it. 

§  The  question  as  to  the  source  of  the  name  Jahveh  has  of 
late  entered  on  a  new,  or  rather  returned  upon  an  old,  phase,  and 
become  of  vital  importance  to  the  interpretation  of  the  religion 
of  Israel.  Of  course  it  is  impossible  to  discuss  it  in  a  paper  like 
the  above.  It  must  wait  separate  treatment.  See,  on  the  one 
side,  Colenso,  part  v.  pp.  269-284,  app.  iii. ;  Land,  "  Theologisch. 
Tijdschrift,"  ii.  pp.  156-170.  On  the  other,  "  Kuenen,  "Gods- 
dienst  van  Israel,"  i.  274, 294,  394-401. 

U  The  discovery  that    much  of    the  Semitic  mythology  had  a 


THE  RA  CES  IN  RELIGION,  277 

The  distinctiv^e  Semitic  conception  of  God  determined 
the  distinctive  character  of  the  Semitic  religions.  They 
are  all  Theocratic.  The  Being  conceived  as  the  Mighty 
Lord  or  King  was  regarded  as  the  true  Monarch  of  the 
State,  its  founder,  lawgiver,  guardian.  The  Assyrian 
kings  reigned  in  the  name  of  God,  received  from  him 
"  pre-eminence,  exaltation,  and  warlike  power."  Their 
wars  were  "  the  wars  of  Assur,"  their  enemies  his  ene- 
mies, their  victories  achieved  by  his  might  and  for  his 
glory,  "  to  set  up  his  emblems  "  in  the  conquered  states. 
The  king's  acts  in  war  or  peace,  council  or  chase,  were 
under  divine  superintendence.  His  person,  garments, 
ornaments,  were  sacred  ;  he  was  priest  while  king, 
officiated  at  the  great  sacrifices,  represented  the  people 
before  God  as  well  as  God  before  the  people.*  The 
same  theocratic  character  can  be  discovered  in  the  re- 
ligion of  the  South  Arabian  Semites  as  revealed  in  the 
Himyaritic  inscriptions.  It  was  common  to  the  Phoeni- 
cian faiths  both  at  home  and  in  the  colonies.  Their 
deities  bore  such  names  as  Baalmelech,  Baal  the  King, 
and  Melkarth,  king  of  the  City.  Their  high  priest  was 
often  associated  in  government  with  the  king,  in  certain 
cases  exercised  regal  and  judicial  functions.  The  more 
eminent  priests  had  to  be  of  royal  blood. f  Theocracy 
was  of  the  very  essence  of  the  Hebrew  faith,  attained  in 

Babylonian  origin  does  not  involve  a  similar  origin  for  the  distinct- 
ively Semitic  religious  ideas.  These,  indeed,  passed  into  the 
Babylonian  myths,  and  inspired  them  with  a  new  meaning.  The 
Semitic  mind  read  its  own  ideas  into  the  Ural-Altaic  forms. 

*  Rawlinson,  "Five  Great  Monarchies,"  i.  200;  ii.  106,  200, 
31 1,  320,  321,  230,  274,  1st  ed.  Inscription,  Tiglath-Pileser  I., 
King  of  Assyria  (London,  1854),  18-22,  64-72.  Dr.  C.  P.  Tiel^ 
"  Vergelijk.  Geschied.  der  Oude  Godsdiensten,"  385-390, 

t  Movers,  "  Phonizier,  Ersch  und  Gruber." 


278  THE  RA  CES  IN  RELIGION: 

it,  indeed,  its  highest  and  most  spiritual  form.  Jahveh 
was  Israel's  king.  Its  wars  were  his.  He  owned  every- 
thing, the  lives  of  man  and  brute,  the  earth  and  the 
fulness  thereof.  The  sublimity  of  the  theocratic  con- 
ception in  Israel  need  not  here  be  told.  It  rose  with 
the  idea  of  Jahveh,  became  transfigured,  spiritualized  in 
the  minds  of  the  Prophets,  who,  unheard  at  home,  de- 
spised abroad,  turned  from  the  deaf  and  obdurate  present 
to  anticipate  a  time  when  their  ideals  should  be  realized, 
and  the  God  whose  spokesmen  they  were  should  reign 
as  king  over  an  enlightened  and  obedient  earth. 

As  the  inevitable  result  of  the  above  characteristic, 
the  Semitic  religions  stood  in  intimate  connection  with 
all  the  duties  and  concerns  of  life.  They  were,  unlike 
the  Indo-European  faiths,  pre-eminently  ethical.  The 
power  of  the  deity  to  command,  to  reward  or  punish, 
seemed  ever}'^where  and  always  present  alike  to  the 
individual  and  the  state.  Religious  emblems  were 
everywhere,  on  buildings,  garments,  ornaments,  and 
signets,  almost  every  weapon  of  war  or  the  chase,  every 
domestic  or  agricultural  implement,  had  its  sacred  sign. 
Personal  names  had  almost  universally  a  religious 
meaning,  contained  as  an  element  the  name  or 
title  of  a  deity.  Just  as  the  Hebrew  names  had,  in 
general,  as  a  component  part  Jah,  or  El,  or  Adon,  so 
Phoenician  names  were  compounded  with  Baal  or  II, 
Assyrian  with  Assur  or  Bel,IvaorNebo.*  This  conscious- 
ness of  the  presence  and  power  of  God  in  the  life  and 
also  some  of  the  basest,  qualities  in  the  Semitic  mind 
over  the  man  was  the  cause  of  some  of  the  noblest,  and 

*  Layard,  "Nineveh  and  its  Remains,"  ii. 450-475.  Rawlinson, 
"Five  Great  Monarchies,"  ii.  App.  A,  on  the  meaning  of  the 
Assyrian  Royal  Names. 


THE  RA  CES  IN  RELIGION.  279 

and  its  religion.  From  it  came  the  exalted  heroism 
of  the  Hebrew  Prophets,  their  invincible  faith,  theii 
sublime  hopefulness,  which  even  national  apostasy,  im- 
potence, and  annihilation  could  not  quench.  Hence, 
too,  came  the  power  which  fused  into  unity  and  kindled 
into  heroic  enthusiasm  the  scattered  Arab  tribes  when 
they  emerged  from  their  deserts  to  give  Islam  to  the 
world.  But  from  the  same  source  came  that  awful 
dread  of  the  Supreme  Power  which  made  so  many  men 
and  women  willing  to  offer  the  fruit  of  the  body  for  the 
sin  of  the  soul.  Human  sacrifices  have,  alas !  been 
known  to  most  religions,  but  no  people  at  the  same  stage 
of  culture  ever  had  a  religion  so  full  of  blood  as  the 
Phoenician.  Subtract  from  the  Semitic  idea  of  God  the 
merciful  element,  leave  only  the  ideas  of  might  and  au- 
thority, and  one  can  understand  how  a  nation  should 
come  so  to  fear  the  very  being  it  worshipped  as  to  seek 
to  appease  him  by  burning  its  own  firstborn.  When 
deity  is  conceived  simply  as  magnified  ferocity,  selfish- 
ness disguised  as  religious  fear  will  rarely  refuse  to 
sacrifice  to  him  the  dearest  possession. 

But  to  the  same  source  another  peculiarity  of  the 
Semitic  religions  must  also  be  traced — their  extreme 
symbolism.  Gods  who  had  attributes  so  unique,  powers 
so  extensive,  modes  of  operation  so  varied,  who  were 
so  distinct  from  nature  while  acting  through  it,  who  were 
so  high  above  while  so  intimately  related  to  man,  who 
thus  held  in  them  elements  so  apparently  contradictory 
to  thought  and  speech,  needed  symbols  to  express 
what  language  could  not  utter.  Men,  too,  who  believed 
in  such  deities  required  perpetual  memorials  of  their 
being,  and  presence,  and  action,  lest  they  should  by  a 
momentary  forgetfulness  provoke  their  wrath.     And  so 


2So  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

Assyria  had  its  winged  bull,  its  man-lion,  the  winged 
circle  or  globe  which  is  the  constant  companion  of  the 
king,  the  sacerdotal  dress  and  ornaments  the  monarch 
wore  as  priest,  the  sacred  tree,  and  the  many  other  objects 
associated  with  the  worship  of  deity.  Phoenicia  had 
its  symbols  as  the  coins  and  inscriptions  witness, 
and  the  Asherah  of  the  Old  Testament  points  probably 
to  one  common  to  the  Semitic  race.  It  were  needless 
to  notice  in  detail  the  familiar  symbols  of  Mosaism, 
such  as  the  cherubim  and  the  ark.  So  excessive,  in- 
deed, was  the  symbolism  of  the  Semites,  that  it  has 
made  the  interpretation  of  their  religious  ideas  pecu- 
liarly difficult ;  misled  classical  writers  into  explaining 
deities,  symbolically  the  fellows,  actually  the  antitheses, 
of  their  own,  by  Greek  and  Latin  names  ;  misleads 
many  modern  scholars  into  taking  some  symbol,  sun, 
moon,  or  planet,  as  expressive  of  the  entire  nature  of 
the  god.  The  name  reveals  the  essential  thought ;  the 
symbol  is  only  a  qualifying  epithet  appended  by  men 
whose  conceptions  were  too  complex  to  struggle  into 
adequate  speech. 

•  One  peculiarity  eminently  characteristic  of  Semitic 
names  of  God  must  here  be  noted,  the  ease  with  which 
they  glide  between  an  appellative  and  a  denominative 
sense.  They  pass  from  general  terms  into  proper 
names,  or  continue  to  be  used  as  both  in  different  or 
even  the  same  dialects.  Thus  the  generic  El^  which  is 
used  with  the  utmost  latitude  in  Hebrew,  becomes  in 
Phoenicia  the  name  of  a  distinct  deity,  as  also  in 
Babylon,  which  is  simply  Bab-ilu*  the  gate  or  sanctuary 
of  El  or  II,  the  ancient  God  of  the  land  and  people. 
The  Hebrew  Elohlm  becomes  in  the  Arabic,  Ildh^  a 
*  Schrader,  "  Keilinschriften/'  42. 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.,  28 1 

general  term,  but  with  the  article  a  proper  name.  A 
rigid  monotheism  cannot  indeed,  distinguish  between 
the  two,  Elohlm  and  Jahveh  being  now  to  Jew  and 
Christian  alike  distinct  and  limited  in  their  applica- 
tion. Baal  is  certainly  often  a  proper  name,*  but  as 
certainly  often  a  general  term  as  well,t  and  while  the 
God  of  Tyre  might  be  raised  into  the  '^2.2\  par  excellence, 
the  world  needed  in  less  eminent  cases  another  name  to 
define  what  specific  god  was  meant,  Baal-Berith,$  Baal- 
Peor,§  Baal-zebub.||  The  Assyrian  Bel  bears,  too,  an 
appellative  as  well  as  a  denominative  sense. 1[  Adonim 
is  used  both  in  Hebrew  and  Phoenician  as  a  general 
term,  but  in  the  form  Ado?iai  it  becomes  almost  synony- 
mous with  Jahveh,  while  the  Greeks  found  the  name 
individualized  in  their  adopted  deity  Adonis.  Molecli, 
too,  while  used  by  the  Hebrews  as  the  proper  name  of 
the  Ammonite  deity,  was  so  indefinite  a  term  as  to  have 
been  interchangeable  wilh  Baal,**  and  to  have  needed 
in  certain  cases  another  word  to  personalize  it.  Jahveh, 
however,  is  distinctly  personal,  and  never  loses  its 
denominative  force. 

The  remarkable  diffusion  aad  fluidity  of  these  distinc- 
tively Semitic  names  of  God  seem  to  warrant  a  double 
inference.  (1.)  There  was  what  may  be  termed  a  com- 
mon idea  of  God,  one,  too,  peculiarly  simple  and  uni- 
form. Variety  was  more  a  matter  of  name  than  of 
thought.      The    Polytheism   was  real  and  extravagant 

*  I  Kings  xviii.  21-26;  2  Kings  x.  18-28,  etc. 
t  Judges  ii.  11  ;  iii.  7  ;  viii.  33,  etc.  §  Judges  viii.  33. 

X  Deut.  iv.  3  ;  Num.  xxv.  1-3.  \  2  Kings  i.  2,  3^ 

II  Schrader,  "  Keilinschriften,"  80. 

**  Cf.  Jer.  xxxii.  35,  xix.  5.  But  see  art.  "  Moloch "  in  Her 
zog's  "  Real-Encyclop,/'  vol.  ix.  714-721. 


282  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION: 

enough,  but  was  due  to  dialectical  differences  and  tribal 
peculiarities  crystallizing  into  local  worships  rather  than 
to  multiplicity  and  variety  of  idea.  Divine  names  differ- 
ed ;  divine  attributes  and  qualities  agreed.  There  was 
unity  in  the  consciousness  of  God  common  to  the 
family.  The  many  specific  deities  invoked  did  not  pul- 
verize the  thought,  Deity  is  mighty,  sovereign,  self- 
existent;  Man  is  His  creature  and  servant.  (2.)  While 
thought  and  language  continually  moving  from  particular 
to  general  held  within  the  race  a  more  or  less  uncon- 
scious unity  of  idea,  the  converse  movement  helped  it 
to  retain,  or  rather  reach,  as  the  unity  became  conscious, 
the  conception  of  personality.  The  more  the  Semitic 
mind  awoke  to  the  unity  of  the  being  that  had  such  a 
variety  of  names,  the  more  distinctly  it  conceived  his 
personality.  It  never  in  thinking  of  God  lost  the  per- 
sonal out  of  the  general  element,  and  so  never  like  the 
Indo-European  mind,  rarified  him  into  an  abstraction. 
The  latter  has  often  in  many  ages  and  on  many  soils 
created  Pantheism,  but  the  former  only  in  some  solitary 
thinker,  who,  starting  from  borrowed  or  alien  premisses, 
has  but  sufficed  to  prove  the  rule. 

There  is  no  assertion  here  of  a  latent  Monotheism  or 
a  monotheistic  instinct  in  the  Semitic  race.  All  that  is 
affirmed  is  this,  there  was  in  the  Semitic  family  a  mode 
of  conceiving  deity  so  common,  yet  so  distinctive,  as  to 
give  at  once  unity  to  their  idea  of  God  and  a  specific 
character  to  their  religions.  Mind  is  never  so  logical 
as  when  its  action  and  inferences  are  unconscious.  The 
premisses  from  which  a  people  start  determine  the  con- 
clusions it  will  reach.  The  most  extravagant  aberglaube^ 
to  use  a  word  Mr.  M.  Arnold  has  almost  naturalized,  is 
rooted  in  a  prior  glaube,  and  though  the  one   may  as- 


7  'HE  RA CES  IN  RELIGION.  283 

sume,  according  to  the  conditions  in  which  it  grows  up, 
the  more  diverse  forms,  its  matter  is  always  fixed  by  the 
other.  So  while  the  Semitic  religions  exhibit  many 
varieties,  they  are  of  one  species,  have  many  local  pecu- 
liarities, but  a  common  character  due  to  their  common 
first  principle,  the  idea  of  God.  The  Assyrio-Babylon- 
ian  empires  were  formed  by  mixed  races  in  the  Meso- 
potamian  valley,  absorbed  shepherds  who  had  on  the 
plains  watched  the  bright  firmament  and  the  stars  which 
shine  for  ever  and  ever,  hunters  who  had  on  the  hills 
chased  the  lion  and  the  bear,  merchants  who  have  passed 
by  the  great  rivers  or  into  the  interior  or  out  to  the  lands 
that  skirt  the  ocean,  agriculturalists  who  had  tilled  the 
fields  watered  by  the  streams,  men  of  itiranian  and  Aryan 
as  well  as  of  Semitic  blood.  These  empires,  devoted  to 
war,  luxury,  architecture,  anxious  to  deify  and  propitiate 
the  power  that  ruled  these,  might  well  construct  a  mot- 
ley Pantheon.  Yet  so  mighty  was  the  Semitic  idea  of 
deity  that,  while  failing  to  exclude  foreign  elements,  it 
stamped  its  peculiar  character  upon  the  national  religion. 
The  Phoenicians,  seamen,  merchants,  agriculturists, 
evolved  peculiarities  of  mythology  and  worship  deter- 
mined by  their  position  and  pursuits.  The  Canaanitish 
nations,  the  South  Arabian  tribes,  the  Bedouins  of  the 
desert,  the  Tsabians  of  Harran,  had  each  religions  speci- 
fically distinct,  generically  akin,  dominated  by  the  idea 
of  God  or  gods  as  might>',  sovereign,  the  source  of 
law  and  duty,  whom  man  must  speak  of  in  symbol,  and 
worship  by  sacrifice  with  fear  and  trembling. 

But  there  is  one  Semitic  people  that  claim  more  than 
a  passing  notice,  the  people  in  whom  the  Semitic  genius 
culminated  in  order  to  realize  its  mission — the  Hebrews. 
Of  the  controversies  concerning  their  origin  and  history, 


284  ^-^^  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

literature  and  religion,  this  paper  can  say  nothing.  It 
were  simply  impertinent  to  attempt  to  do  so  amidst 
these  generalities.  But  so  much  can  be  said  —  they 
issue  out  of  Egypt  and  settle  in  Canaan,  a  branch  of  the 
Semitic  race,  one  with  it  in  language,  cosmogonic  and 
religious  tradition.  But  this  people's  patriarchs  are  its 
own,  and  their  significance  is  religious.  It  has  its 
national  god,  Jahveh,  a  name  which  signifies  existence, 
"  He  who  is,"  and  therefore  the  uncreated,  without  be- 
ginning, above  time  too,  the  present  without  past  or 
future.  He  stands  alone,  without  queen,  no  Beltis  be- 
ing set  over  against  this  Bel.  He  is  Israel's  God,  neither 
believed  nor  claiming  to  be  more.  Semitic  fashion.  He 
is  King  and  Lawgiver,  regulates  their  lives,  their  state, 
stands  therefore  identified  with  their  national  existence. 
The  people  know  other  gods,  love  them,  serve  them. 
Canaanitish  gods,  Phoenician  gods,  have  their  altars  and 
sacrifices.  But  Jahvism  will  not  mingle  with  these  wor- 
ships, is  intolerant,  stern  after  a  new  type,  sets  its  face 
against  human  sacrifices,  but  enforces  in  the  most  abso- 
lute way  righteousness,  purity  of  thought  and  life.  But 
this  worship  fares  ill  amid  the  lawless  Hebrews,  intoxi- 
cated by  the  wines  and  luxuries  of  Canaan,  fascinated 
by  the  soft  embraces  of  Ashtoreth.  So  a  new  class  of 
men  begin  to  appear,  of  old  called  Seers,*  as  seeing  into 
the  heart  of  things :  now  called  prophets,  speakers,  men 
who  can  loudly,  clearly  speak  what  is  given  them,  not 
what  they  think,  but  what  comes  to  them,  enters  into 
and  possesses  them  as  the  word  or  spirit  of  Jahveh.f 

*  I  Sam.  ix.  9. 

t  Ewald,  "  Propheten  des  Alten  Bundes,"  i.  pp.  7  ff.  Kuenen, 
"Godsdienst  van  Israel,"  i.  212-215.  Discussion  of  the  question  as 
to  whether  Prophetism  was  Canaanitish  in  its  origin  is,  of  course, 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  285 

These  men  are  peculiar  to  the  Hebrews,  unknown  to  the 
other  Semitic  peoples ;  prophetism,  properly  so-called, 
not  flourishing  out  of  Israel.  The  prophets  fight  what 
seems  a  hopeless  battle.  The  kings,  seeking  foreign 
alliances,  wish  to  break  down  the  stern  and  exclusive 
Jahvism  that  stands  in  their  way,  and  to  bring  their 
religious  customs  and  beliefs  into  harmony  with  their 
neighbors.  The  people,  hating  its  moral  severities,  lov- 
ing the  licence  their  idolatrous  friends  enjoy,  receive 
and  worship  readily  the  native  or  alien  deities  which 
the  prophets  denounce  as  false.  The  great  powers, 
Egypt  and  Assyria,  have  in  Israel  or  Judah  their  respec- 
tive interests  or  parties,  and  these  like  their  allies  are 
inimical  to  the  God  identified  with  the  independence  of 
the  land.  Against  these  and  similar  forces  the  prophets 
had  to  struggle,  with  almost  constant  political  failure, 
with  only  here  and  there  a  transient  success,  when  a 
king  was  found  who  understood  the  issues  gathered  into 
the  name  and  worship  of  Jahveh.  The  struggle  ended 
only  when  the  people,  who  had  been  carried  into  captiv- 
ity a  godless,  lawless  multitude,  returned  a  united 
nation  with  the  name  of  Jahveh  so  stamped  into  their 
hearts  that  the  persecutions  of  centuries,  the  loss  of  land 
and  laws  and  language,  frequent  and  forced  migrations, 
life  for  generations  amid  peoples  of  alien  race  and  re- 
ligion, have  all  been  unable  to  quench  their  faith  in  Him. 
But  now  let  us  look  at  the  spiritual  issues  of  the 
struggle.  These  prophets  spoke  in  the  name  of  Jahveh, 
declared  He  was  one  God,  the  only  God.    Other  deities 

not  possible  here.  Wherever  and  however  it  arose,  the  prophet 
became  in  Israel  too  unique  a  phenomenon  to  find  an  exact  paral 
lei  in  any  other  religion,  and  so  it  is  no  matter  of  much  moment 
where  the  idea  of  prophetship  originated.     Israel  alone  realized  it 


286  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

were  false,  idols,  without  actual  or  substantive  being.  But 
this  monotheism  was  only  one  element  of  their  gospel. 
Jahveh  was  King — therefore  had  the  right  to  command 
and  be  obeyed.  He  was  righteous — therefore  His  word 
was  the  word  of  righteousness.  His  law  the  standard  of 
right  and  truth.  He  was  the  Creator,  therefore  the 
Father,  of  man,  and  loved  the  creature  He  had  formed 
as  a  father  loves  his  child,  more  than  a  mother  loves 
her  infant.  And  from  these  principles  many  great  re- 
sults followed.  The  king  was  bound  to  obey  Jahveh, 
order  his  state  and  administer  his  laws  according  to 
His  will.  That  will  was  man's  supreme  law.  Obedi- 
ence to  it  was  righteousness  and  peace.  And  so  moral- 
ity was  joined  to  religion,  was  rooted  in  the  nature  of 
God.  Knowledge  of  God  and  the  love  it  was  certain 
to  awaken  became  the  mainspring  of  action,  made  obe- 
dience easy  and  holiness  possible.  And  were  man 
afflicted  with  the  strong  weakness  of  an  unstable  will, 
did  he  sin,  then  there  was  mercy  with  God,  forgiveness 
that  He  might  be  feared.  And  how  varied  the  expres- 
sion these  thoughts  receive  !  They  are  uttered  in  curses, 
such  curses  as  only  Semitic  lips  can  frame,  against  idol- 
atrous kings  and  apostate  peoples ;  in  pictures,  that 
seem  to  laugh  in  terrible  irony,  of  idol  gods  placed 
alongside  the  only  eternal  Jahveh ;  in  entreaties  of 
weeping  tenderness  to  the  people  that  had  been  loved 
and  had  wandered  to  return  ;  in  proclamations  of  an 
eternal  law  the  neglect  of  man  can  never  annul,  or  his 
disobedience  degrade  ;  in  descriptions,  lurid  as  if  dash- 
ed off  with  a  brush  dipt  in  the  hues  of  earthquake  and 
eclipse,  sweet  and  beautiful  as  if  steeped  in  the  silent 
loveliness  of  an  oriental  night,  or  bright  and  luscious, 
full  of  the  music  of  birds  and  the  sound  of  many  waters 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  287 

like  an  Eastern  Garden  of  the  Lord.  And  then,  when 
these  men  turned  from  their  mission  to  man  to  their 
own  relation  to  God,  how  their  voices  seemed  to  change. 
Now  we  hear  the  muffled  yet  h(5peful  weeping  of  a  pen- 
itential psalm,  imploring  the  mercy  of  God,  forgiveness 
of  sin,  a  right  spirit  and  a  clean  heart ;  again,  a  sweet 
lyrical  song  of  trust  alike  in  living  and  dying  in  the 
Lord  the  Shepherd.  That  old  Hebrew  literature  in  all 
its  forms,  in  Psalms  and  Proverbs,  in  prophetic  visions 
and  lyrico-epical  poems,  in  history  and  parable,  tells  the 
same  tale,  the  sweet  and  winsome  gospel  of  the  God 
who  reigns  and  loves,  who  must  often  punish,  but  who 
always  delights  to  save. 

Here  then,  was  the  gift  of  the  Semitic  race  in  its 
noblest  branch  to  the  world — faith  in  the  living, 
righteous  God.  That  faith  was  embodied  in  a  sacred 
literature,  the  grandest,  in  its  essential  elements  the 
nearest  universal,  mankind  has  ever  known,  and  in  a 
people  exalted  by  enthusiam  for  the  divine  unity  into 
its  missionaries,  with  their  field  widened  into  the  world 
by  their  idea,  in  spite  of  all  their  egoism  and  intoler- 
ance. Their  Gospel  did  not  simply  affirm  there  is  no 
God  but  Jahveh — that  had  been  a  mere  abstract  and 
impotent  proposition — affirmed  also.  His  right  is  to 
rule,  man's  duty  is  to  obey.  Religion  is  not  simply 
worship,  is  obedience,  righteousness,  peace.  A  gift  so 
splendid  might  well  hold  in  it  the  regeneration  of  the 
world,  giving  to  it  not  only  the  idea  of  the  Divine  Unity, 
but  religion  changed  into  a  mighty  and  commanding 
reality,  which  penetrated  and  inspired  the  whole  man, 
dignified  him  with  the  consciousness  of  a  divine  descent, 
gladdened  him  with  the  hope  of  a  happy,  because  a 
holy,  immortality,  quickened  him  with  the  sense  of  om- 


288  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

nipotence  moving  everywhere  to  the  help  of  man  in  the 
soft  guise  of  infinite  gentleness.  He  who  knows  what 
these  things  mean  will  best  understand  that  ancient 
saying,  "  Salvation  is  of  the  Jews." 

2. 

The  Indo-European  mode  of  conceiving  and  express- 
ing deity  is  in  almost  every  respect  a  contrast  to  the 
Semitic.  The  general  terms  were  primarily  expressive 
of  physical  qualities ;  the  proper  names  of  physical 
objects  or  phenomena.  There  is  no  term  as  common 
to  the  Indo-Europeans  as  El  is  to  the  Semites.  The 
one  most  extensively  used  is  the  Sanskrit  deva.  Zend 
daeva,  Greek  dz.6<;  (?)  Latin  deus,  Old  Irish  dia,  Cyme 
deiv,  Lith.  dewas^  This  term,  derived  from  the  root  div^ 
to  shine,  is  expressive  of  the  physical  quality  bright- 
ness, characterizes  God  as  the  bright  or  shining  one. 
Another  very  common  term,  the  Persian  JBhaga,  old 
Slavonic  Bogu,  means  the  distributor,  the  giver  of 
breadjt  and  had  possibly  been  applied  first  to  light  or 
the  sun  as  dividing  time  and  dispensing  food,  and  had 
then  been  extended  to  the  being  resident  in  or  acting 
through  these  objects.  The  Teutonic  term  cuof,  guot, 
Gott,  God,  is  still  of  too  uncertain  derivation  to  allow  any 
inference  to  be  based  upon  it,  but  the  most  probable 
etymologies  seem  to  indicate  that  the  Germanic  peoples 
deviated  from  the  common  Indo-European  idea  of  God, 
and  hit  upon  one  that  may  help  to  explain  some  of  the 
finest  elements  in  their  faith  and  character.^ 

*  See  pp.  25,  26,  and  note. 

t  Fick,  "  Indo-Ger.  Worterb.,"  133.  Curtius,  "  Griech.  Ety- 
moL,"  279. 

X  Grimm,  "  Deutsche  Mythol.,"  12  ff.  The  most  probable  ety- 
mologies are  either  the  root ghu,  ghavati,viYitnct  Sansk.  hu,  havafe. 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  289 

As  were  the  general  terms,  so  were  the  proper  names, 
primarily  denotive  of  physical  objects  or  forces.  The 
deified  Heaven,  usually  married  to  the  deified  Earth,  is 
the  foundation  of  the  Indo-European  mythologies,  the 
sources  of  their  multitudinous  gods.  Dyaus  and  Prithivi 
are  in  the  Rig-Veda  "  the  beneficent  Father,"  and 
"  Mighty  Mother,"  the  prolific  parents  of  all  creatures.* 
The  Greeks  knew  the  bright  sky,  Zeus,  father  of  gods 
and  men ;  and  if  philology  forbids  us  to  see  in  Hera, 
Era,  Hertha,  Earth,  t  it  cannot  refuse  us  Demeter, 
mother  earth,  "  the  broad-bosomed,"  "  the  mother  of  all 
things,"  "  the  spouse  of  the  starry  Ouranos."  The 
ancient  Germans  knew  Tuisco,  the  father  of  Mannus, 
sprung  from  the  earth  ;  Tiu,  the  god  of  the  bright  sky, 
and  Hertha,  or  Ertha,  Terra  Mater  ;  X  and  no  thought 
was  more  familiar  to  the  Latin  poets,  as  none  was  more 
rooted  in  their  mythology,  than  that  Lucretius  thus 
utters — 

"  Denique  coelesti  sumus  omnes  semine  oriundi : 

Omnibus  ille  idem  Pater  est,  unde  alma  liquentis 

Umoris  guttas  mater  cum  terra  recepit, 

Feta  parit  nitidas  fruges,  arbustaque  laeta 

Et  genus  humanum."  § 

All  the  Indo-European  religions  bear  the  stamp  of 
this  primative  naturalism,  even  where   they  deviate,  as 

zend^  zu,  zavaiti,  to  call,  to  invoke,  or  hu,  Sansk.  huta,  to  sacrifice. 
God  is  thus  either  He  upon  whom  one  calls,  or  he  to  whom  one 
sacrifices.  Cf.  Fick,  "Indo-Ger.  Worterb.,"  71,  746.  Pictet,  "Les 
Origines  Indo-Europ.,"  ii.  658-661. 

*  Rig- Veda,  i,  159,  i,  2.     Muir,  "  Sansk.  Texts,"  v.  21-34. 

t  Curtius,  "Griechis.  Etymol.,"  116.  But  see  Welcker,  "  Grie. 
chis.  Gotterl.,  i.  363. 

X  Tacitus,  "Germania,"  c.  40. 

§  "  De  Rerum  Natura,"  iL  991-995. 

19 


290 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 


in  the  old  Iranian  faith,  most  widely  from  the  family 
type.  Almost  all  the  deities  of  the  Rig- Veda  bear 
natural  names,  exercise  functions  expressive  of  their 
physical  characters.  Thus  Indra,  the  great  god  of  the 
Vedic  Indians,  "  the  thunderer,"  through  fear  of  whom 
"  both  heaven  and  earth  trembles,"  the  conqueror  of 
Vrittra,  is  the  rain-god,  who  pierces  the  cloud  by  his 
thunderbolts,  and  lets  the  long-needed  waters  fall  upon 
the  thirsty  earth.  Varuna,  the  Greek  Ouranos,  most 
spiritual  of  Vedic  deities,  who  knows  all  things,  the 
secret  as  the  open,  who  punishes  transgressors,  and 
yet  is  gracious  to  him  who  has  committed  sin,  is  just 
the  open  enveloping  heaven.  Surya,  the  all-seeing, 
*'  who  beholds  all  creatures,  the  good  and  bad  deeds  of 
mortals,"  who  rides  in  a  car  drawn  by  fleet  and  ruddy 
horses ;  Savitri,  the  golden-eyed,  who  illuminates  the 
atmosphere  and  all  the  regions  of  the  earth,  are  only 
names  of  deities  who  personify  the  Sun.  And  this 
naturalism  appears  everywhere,  in  XJshas,  the  Dawn, 
Agni,  Fire,  Vayu,  the  Wind,  the  Maruts,  the  Storm- 
gods.  And  if  we  pass  to  Greece,  the  same  thoughts, 
only  modified  in  their  expression,  again  meet  us.  Athene 
is  the  Bright  or  the  Blooming,  without  mother,  daughter 
of  Zeus,  the  colored  dawn  coming  out  upon  the  brow 
of  the  brightening  sky.  In  Gaia,  Dione,  Demeter,  in 
Helios,  Phoibos,  Eos,  and  in  the  myths,  familiar  enough 
to  all,  that  grow  out  of  and  round  these  and  similar 
names,  the  naturalism  characteristic  of  the  race  finds 
expression.  In  the  Jupiter  and  Juno  of  Rome,  in  the 
Wodin  and  Thor  of  Germany,  the  same  mode  of  con- 
ceiving deity  is  manifest,  only  with  a  difference  in  rep- 
resentation, such  as  was  inevitable  to  peoples  so  unlike 
in  geographical  situation  and  political   constitution  as 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 


291 


the  Latin  nations  of  sunny  Italy,  and  the  Teutonic  tribes 
of  the  stormy  North. 

The  mode  in  which  deity  was  conceived  and  repre- 
sented in  the  Indo-European  family  determined  the 
character  of  its  religions,  the  place  they  held,  and  the 
functions  they  exercised  alike  in  the  life  of  the  individ- 
ual and  of  the  state.  As  naturalism  furnished  forms  to 
the  religious  ideas,  it  imposed  upon  them  its  own  limi- 
tations. The  gods  never  escaped  the  fate  of  the  phys- 
ical objects  that  suggested  their  being  and  supplied 
their  names.  Their  existence  had  a  beginning,  was  to 
have  an  end,  their  power  to  act  was  limited,  themselves 
either  the  subjects  or  victims  of  a  dread,  undeified 
Might,  named  or  unnamed.  Thus  the  Vedic  Indra  has 
a  father  and  mother,  is  concealed  at  his  birth,  crushes 
in  fight  his  father,  and  wages  perpetual  war  against 
Vrittra  and  the  Asuras.  Varuna  is  an  Aditya,  a  son  of 
Aditi,  who  has  several  sons  besides.  Indeed,  all  the 
Vedic  gods  are  derivative  beings,  are  extolled  as  cre- 
ators, yet  are  regarded  as  themselves  creatures,  with 
the  same  ebb  and  flow,  struggle,  failure,  triumph  in  their 
lives  as  there  are  in  ours.  The  Greek  gods  move  within 
still  narrower  limits,  are  feebler,  simply  because  more 
distinctly  personalized,  and  placed  in  more  definite  and 
orderly  relations.  Zeus,  though  the  king  of  the  gods, 
can  be  circumvented,  contradicted,  resisted.  The 
Olympian  aristocracy  is  by  no  means  obedient  or 
deferential,  and  Hera  is  a  queen  who  can  often  out- 
general and  defeat  her  lord.  But  higher  than  all  stands 
fate,  Moira,  whose  decrees  bind  even  the  gods.  Zeus 
cannot  save  Sarpedon,  dearest  to  him  of  mortal  men, 
because  he  is  fated  to  die.*  Polyphemos,  in  his  prayer 
*  "  II.,"  xvi.  434. 


292  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

to  Poseidon,  recognizes  Destiny  as  higher  than  the  god.* 
Poseidon  wishes  to  lead  ^neas  from  death,  because 
fate  has  described  his  escape.f  The  very  immortaHty, 
which  is  the  distinctive  attribute  of  the  gods,  is  not  self- 
given  and  maintained,  springs  from  their  use  of  nectar 
and  ambrosia.1:  And  as  in  the  Greek,  so  in  the  Ger- 
man mythology.  The  gods  cannot  escape  their  doom, 
must  go  down  in  a  common  catastrophe,  the  victims  of 
Ragnarokr.  There  is,  therefore,  no  self-contained  ex- 
istence or  power  in  the  Indo-European  gods.  The  very 
names  which  gave  them  being  were  like  the  shirt  of 
Nessus,  garments  that  involved  death. 

But  while  the  primary  Indo-European  conception  of 
deity  imposed  such  limitations  on  the  existence  and 
power  of  the  gods,  it  helped  to  develop  the  elements 
of  independence  and  freedom  in  the  idea  of  man.  He 
stood  over  against  deity,  not  as  a  servant  or  slave,  but 
as  voluntary,  independent,  with  as  good  a  right  to  exist 
as  the  god,  though  with  less  power  to  assert  or  enforce 
it.  Hence  in  the  pure,  unreformed  Indo-European  re- 
ligions there  was  none  of  the  slavish  dread  of  deity  one 
meets  everywhere  in  the  Semitic.  God  and  man  not 
only  so  nearly  approach  each  other  as  almost  to  blend 
in  nature,  but  their  powers  are,  if  not  well  matched,  yet 
so  much  akin,  that  the  god  easily  becomes  jealous  of 
the  prosperous  man.  There  was  even  a  tendency  to  re- 
gard the  deities  as  somewhat  dependent  on  human 
gifts.  Thus  Indra  loves  and  is  exhilarated  by  the  soma 
juice:  Without  it  he  is  like  a  thirsty  stag,  or  a  bull 
roaming  in  a  waterless  waste.  All  the  gods  hasten 
eagerly  to  partake  of  it,  and  it  confers  immortality  on 

*  "  Od.,"  ix.  528  iff. 

t  "  XL,"  XX.  300  ff.      X  Nagelsbach,  "  Homerische  TheoL,"  42  i£ 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  293 

gods  as  well  as  men.*  Thus,  too,  Poseidon  goes  off  to 
the  Ethiopians  to  a  hecatomb  of  bulls  and  lambs,  and 
is  delighted  with  his  feast.f  The  scent  of  bulls  and 
goats,  or  choice  lambs  and  kids,  offered  in  sacrifice, 
pleases  Apollo.  $  The  same  feeling  is  manifest,  too,  in 
those  ironical  pictures  of  the  Olympian  court  and  its 
contentions  so  common  in  Homer,  and  in  the  readiness 
to  make  game  of  the  gods  so  characteristic  of  the 
Greeks,  so  unintelligible  to  us.  The  healthy  Indo- 
European  Naturalism  never  knew  the  abject  prostration 
of  spirit  before  the  invisible  powers  so  universal  among 
the  Semites,  developed  rather  a  somewhat  super-eminent 
manliness  that  did  not  care  to  bow  too  low  even  to 
deity. 

These  peculiarities  of  the  Indo-European  religions 
produced  another  of  their  distinctive  characteristics  : 
they  were  what  may  be  termed  political  as  opposed  to 
theocratic.  Religion  did  not  dominate  the  state,  but 
the  state  the  religion.  This,  perhaps,  is  put  a  little  too 
absolutely,  but  expresses  substantially  the  truth.  The 
Indian  Aryans  implored  victory  from  the  gods,  and 
praised  Indra,  who  had  hurled  his  thunderbolts  against 
the  Dasyus,  shattered  their  cities,  destroyed  them,  and 
given  the  land  to  the  Arya.§  The  tragic  sacrifice  at 
Aulis,  though  unknown  to  Homer,  shows  what  value  the 
Greeks  set  upon,  and  what  a  price  they  thought  it  in 
certain  cases  right  to  pay  for,  the  favor  and  help  of  the 
gods.  But,  to  say  nothing  of  the  horror  the  legend 
excited  in  the  national  mind — a  horror  which  regarded 
the  sacrifice  as  a  crime  clamant  for  revenge — it  is  cer- 

*  R.-V.,  vili.  4,  10;  V.  36,  I ;  viii.  2,  18,  48, 3. 

t  "  Od.,"  i.  20-25.  X  "  II.,"  i.  40,  315. 

§  R.-V.,  i.  103,  3;  iii.  34,  9;  iv.  26,  2. 


294  ^-^^  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

tain  that,  while  the  Greeks  were  always  wishful  to  pro- 
pitiate the  invisible  powers,  their  wars  were  never  either 
really  or  formally  undertaken  to  extend  the  dominion  or 
exalt  the  glory  of  their  gods.  The  political  idea  was 
prominent  alike  in  the  Vedic,  Hellenic,  and  Germanic 
mythologies.  The  state  made  its  own  laws,  did  not  re- 
ceive them  from  deity.  The  king  was  no  infallible 
representative  and  organ  of  heaven,  had  no  absolute 
authority,  had  his  action  limited  and  directed  by  the 
council,  while  behind  and  above  both  stood  the  assembly. 
Within  the  state,  necessary  to  its  prosperity,  but  con- 
trolled, not  controlling,  stood  the  religion.  It  did  not 
dare  to  assume  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation,  the  direc- 
tion of  the  individual.  Impiety  was  a  crime  less  terrible 
than  treason.  The  Republic  of  Plato  is  here  of  peculiar 
significance.  Greece  never  had  a  sweeter  and  more  re- 
ligious spirit,  more  Hellenic  in  its  culture,  more  Oriental 
in  type  and  character  of  thought.  He  hated  the  immor- 
alities of  the  popular  mythology,  strove  to  develop  a 
purer  religious  sense  in  himself  and  his  countrymen.  In 
his  Republic  his  highest  ideals  stand  embodied.  It  has 
been  termed  a  civitas  Dd,  a  church,  not  a  state.  It  con- 
ceives the  here  as  only  a  school  for  the  hereafter.  Man 
is  to  be  so  governed  and  educated  in  time  as  to  be  grati- 
fied for  eternity.  The  general  conception  is  religious 
enough,  but  what  particular  place  does  religion  get  in 
it  1  It  is  admitted  into  the  state,  purified,  exalted ;  the 
dismal  pictures  of  the  future,  the  immoralities,  the  falsi- 
ties, the  mutabilities,  the  jealousies  attributed  to  the 
gods  are  all  removed,  that  the  youth  may  be  taught 
piety  without  injury  to  their  manliness  and  morals  ;  but 
the  place  it  is  allowed  to  hold  is  as  an  element  in  a  per- 
fect education  alongside  style  and  music  and  gymnastic, 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  295 

qualifying  for  the  study  of  philosophy,  which  can  alone 
construct  and  govern  the  ideal  state.  The  condition 
necessary  for  its  realization  and  the  cessation  of  ill  is, 
that  philosophers  become  kings,  or  kings  philosophers. 
The  Platonic  church  thus  remains  a  state  governed  by 
divine  ideals,  working  for  divine  ends,  but  a  state  still, 
where  the  philosopher  is  the  priest,  the  idea  of  Good 
the  God.  The  Hellenic  -6h^  is  everywhere,  the  Sem- 
itic Oio/.paria  nowhere,  apparent. 

Space  does  not  allow  us  to  illustrate  in  detail  the 
action  of  these  peculiarities  of  thought  and  character, 
determined  by  the  primary  conception  of  God,  in  the 
several  Indo-European  religions.  Separated  for  centu- 
ries from  the  other  branches  of  their  stock,  settling  in  a 
land  where  Nature  is  adverse  to  energy,  favorable  to 
contemplation,  led  by  their  conquests  into  the  adoption 
of  a  social  system  which  made  them  the  one  sacerdotal 
member  of  their  family,  the  Aryan  Indians  evolved  a 
religion  curiously  un-Aryan  in  its  nature.  They  had  in 
them  in  their  Vedic  days  as  fine  possibilities  as  any  sec- 
tion of  their  race.  These,  indeed,  only  accelerated  the 
growth  of  the  strange  and  terrible  sacerdotalism  that 
soon  overshadowed  and  extinguished  their  original  free» 
and  vigorous  life.  How  they  saw  into  the  mercy  of  God, 
into  the  weakness  and  sin  of  man,  let  this  hymn- testify  :— 

"  Let  me  not,  O  King  Varuna,  go  to  the  house  of  earth.  Be  gra- 
cious, O  mighty  God,  be  gracious. 

I  go  along,  O  thunderer,  quivering  like  an  inflated  skin.  Be 
gracious,  O  mighty  God,  be  gracious. 

O  bright  and  Mighty  God,  I  have  transgressed  through  want  of 
power.     Be  gracious,  O  mighty  God,  be  gracious. 

Thirst  has  overwhelmed  thy  worshipper,  when  standing  even  in 
the  midst  of  the  waters.  Be  gracious,  O  mighty  God,  be 
gracious. 


296  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGIOiV. 

Whatever  offence  this  be,  O  Varuna,  that  we  mortals  commit 
against  the  people  of  the  sky,  in  whatever  way  we  have  broken 
thy  laws  by  thoughtlessness.  Be  gracious,  O  mighty  God,  be 
gracious."  * 

The  Iranian  Aryans,  too,  merit,  though  they  cannot 
receive,  more  than  mere  mention.  They  had  parted, 
possibly  on  religious  grounds,  from  their  Indian  brethren, 
had  transformed  their  primitive  naturalism  into  a  sublime 
moral  faith,  changed  the  old  nature-gods  into  demons, 
the  struggle  of  light  and  darkness  into  the  conflict  of 
good  and  evil,  and  had  settled  in  the  highlands  of  Iran 
as  tribes  that  were  to  grow  by  absorption  and  conquest 
into  the  great  Persian  Empire.  How  their  faith  grew, 
how  much  of  it  passed  into  Judaism,  contributing  ele- 
ments that  helped  it  to  expand  into  a  missionary  religion, 
this  paper  cannot  now  tell.  But  Hellenism  demands 
more  than  a  momentary  glance.  In  it  Indo-European 
religious  thought  passed  through  some  of  its  most  extra- 
ordinary phases,  and  became  so  spiritualized  as  to  be 
"ready,  when  the  highest  Semitic  faith  appeared  under  a 
new  form,  to  blend  with  it  into  a  religion  universal,  pro- 
gressive, with  the  divine  and  human  elements  so  united 
and  harmonized  as  to  change  the  slavish  fear  of  the  one 
race  and  the  godless  independence  of  the  other  into  the 
love  that  made  God  dwell  in  man  and  man  in  God. 

It  has  been  common  since  Hegel  to  describe  Hellen- 
ism as  "  the  religion  of  the  Beautiful."  The  Greek 
mind  was  indeed  aesthetically  open  and  susceptible  to  a 
degree  men  of  the  colder  and  obtuser  West  can  ill 
understand,   but  the   Hegelian  formula  defines  Greek 

*  R.-V.  vii.  9,  Muir's  "  Sans.  Texts,"  v.  p.  67.  See  also  M. 
MUller,  "  Hist.  Anc.  Sansk.  Lit.,"  pp.  540  f.,  and  "  Chips,"  i.  39  fL 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION  297 

religion  as  little  as  "  the  Christianity  of  the  Beautiful" 
would  define  the  Italian  religion  of  the  Renaissa?ice^ 
The  Hellenic  faith  had  as  its  basis  or  centre  the  common 
Indo-European  naturalism.  Its  gods  were  nature-powers 
transfigured  and  glorified  by  the  radiant  genius  of  Greece ; 
its  men  were  free  and  independent  worshippers  touched 
with  the  peculiar  Grecian  grace  and  reverence.  The 
mythology  had  many  imaginative,  few  ethical,  elements, 
and  never  so  escaped  from  epic  and  dramatic  uses  as  to 
become  a  reasonable  and  moral  religious  faith.  The 
gods  were  spiritualized,  but  hardly  became  moral  gov- 
ernors. Their  authority  was  not  exercised  over  or 
through  the  conscience,  and  sin  in  the  Hebrew  sense 
was  unknown  in  Greece.  Godliness  did  not  involve 
righteousness.  Holiness  was  too  little  of  a  divine  attri- 
bute to  make  its  pursuit  a  religious  duty.  The  immor- 
alities of  the  immortals  easily  apologized  for  those  of 
mortals.  But  the  old  naturalism  asserted  its  presence 
still  more  fatally  in  the  denial  of  Providence  or  pity  in 
the  gods.  They  were  changeful,  radiant,  stormful  as 
Mother  Nature.  They  doomed  mortals  to  misery  while 
they  lived  without  care.  Zeus  had  at  his  threshold 
two  casks  of  gifts,  one  of  evil,  another  of  good  ;  these 
he  distributed  mixed  to  one  man,  who  fell  now  into 
good,  again  into  evil ;  but  to  another  man  he  gave  the 
unmixed  ill,  which  drove  him  miserable  over  the  divine 
earth. t  He  knows  no  more  wretched  being  than  man, 
and  does  nothing  to  lighten  his  wretchedness,  only 
sneers  at  it.  The  treacherous  beauty,  the  brilliant 
promise  that  only  mocks  performance,  the  cruel  serenity 
which  only  smiles  at  human  grief,  the  power  to  nourisli, 

*  Welcker,  "  Griechis.  Gotterl.,"  ii.  16S. 
t  •'  II.,"  xxiv,  525-535. 


298  THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 

the  impotence  to  protect  man,  so  characteristic  of 
Nature,  characterized  the  Greek  gods.  And  these  qual- 
ities of  deit}^,  softened  and  sweetened  indeed,  but  never 
essentially  changed,  continued  to  live  alongside  the 
deepening  ethical  consciousness  of  Greece,  and  gave  to 
its  genius  the  mournfulness,  the  tragic  sense  of  the  sad 
and  unequal  struggle  between  the  will  of  man  and  the 
merciless  decrees  of  destiny,  the  insight  into  the  bitter 
and  ironical  contrast  between  the  passion  and  futile 
endeavours  of  the  individual  and  the  calm  order  and 
relentless  march  of  the  cosmic  whole,  that  created  what 
was  most  sublime  and  pathetic  in  Grecian  poetry  and 
history  and  philosophy. 

For,  however  few  ethical  elements  existed  in  the 
Greek  religion,  the  Greek  nature  was  eminently  ethical. 
Faith  in  a  moral  order  vv^hich  man  could  not  break  un- 
punished, has  had  nowhere  deeper  root  than  in  ancient 
Greece.  This  faith  rose  into  sublimest  expression  when 
the  nation  was  in  its  most  heroic  mood, — struggled  into 
utterance  in  those  tragedies  of  ^schylos  which  exhibit 
the  fateful  presence  and  inevitable  action  of  Nemesis,  in 
the  sweeter  and  more  refined  and  less  gloomy  dramas  of 
Sophokles,  where  the  picture  is  softened  by  a  milder 
character  in  God  and  greater  reverence  in  man.  Along- 
side the  deepening  current  of  moral  belief  flowed  the 
stream  of  philosophical  speculation,  now  metaphysical, 
inquiring  into  the  cause  and  reality  of  things  ;  again 
ethical,  seeking  to  discover  the  origin,  nature,  and  laws 
of  virtue.  The  one  unified  and  sublimed  the  idea  of 
God;  the  other  ennobled  the  nature  and  exalted  the 
end  of  man.  Greek  thought  could  not  rest  satisfied 
with  the  physical  conception  of  deity ;  speculated  on 
the  notion  of  cause  and  the  idea  of  good  till,  transcend- 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION.  299 

ing  the  received  Polytheism  without  grasping  an 
explicit  Monotheism,  it  conceived  an  impersonal  cause 
rather  than  a  creator,  a  highest  good  rather  than  a  one 
god.  Religious  thought,  divorced  from  religion,  had 
groped  its  way  towards  a  supreme,  not  person,  but  ab- 
straction. And  so  the  ideas  of  personal  reality  and 
righteousness,  moral  action  and  rule,  were  associated 
with  man  rather  than  with  God.  Humanity,  indeed, 
became  the  later  Hellenic  divinity,  the  vehicle  of  what 
was  most  divine  in  the  universe.  Art  and  philosophy 
combine  to  idealize  man,  the  one  to  hold  the  mirror  to 
what  in  him  was  beautiful,  the  other  to  what  in  him 
was  good  and  true.  Indo-European  thought,  which  had 
started  by  finding  God  in  the  bright  sky,  appropriately 
ended  in  its  most  brilliant  representative  by  finding 
deity  in  the  heart  and  conscience  of  man. 


III. 


Hellenism  may  thus  be  regarded  as  the  contrast  and 
complement  of  Hebraism.  The  former  came  to  reveal 
the  dignity  and  divinity  of  man,  while  the  latter  had 
proclaimed  the  one  righteous  yet  merciful  God.  He- 
braism had  found  the  supreme  law  in  the  Divine  will, 
man's  highest  perfection  in  obedience  to  it.  Hellenism 
discovered  an  eternal  law  of  right  written  in  the  heart, 
realized  in  history,  enforcing  its  authority  by  sanctions 
too  dread  to  be  despised.  The  prophets  of  the  first 
spoke  in  the  name  of  the  Most  High  God,  but  the 
prophets  of  the  second  spoke  in  the  name  of  man ; 
were  the  poets  who  sang  of  his  heroism,  his  loves,  his 
sufferings,  his  struggle  for  life   against  a  merciless  or 


300 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 


ironical  fate,  the  sculptors  who  enshrine  his  beauties  in 
forms  so  perfect  that  they  needed  but  life  to  be  god- 
like men,  the  philosophers  who  at  once  uttered  his 
yearnings  after  the  Supreme  Good  and  pointed  out  the 
path  that  led  to  it.  Neither  was  complete  in  itself. 
Hebraism  needed  Hellenism  to  soften  and  humanize  it, 
to  translate  it  from  an  austere  and  exclusive  theocracy 
into  a  gentle  and  cosmopolitan  religion  which  could 
illumine  the  homes  and  inspire  the  hearts  of  men  with 
its  own  sweet  spirit.  Hellenism  needed  Hebraism  to 
pour  into  its  blood  the  iron  of  moral  purpose  and 
precept,  to  keep  it  from  falling  into  impotence  under 
its  own  unsubstantial  abstractions,  and  set  it  bare- 
footed, as  it  were,  upon  the  living  God  as  upon  an 
everlasting  rock.  And  each  had  thus  in  different,  even 
contrary,  ways,  been  working  towards  a  common  end. 
It  was  the  old  story  of  two  streams,  in  source  far  apart, 
in  course  wholly  unlike,  making  for  a  single  bed.  One 
had  sprung  up  in  the  hot  and  blistering  desert,  amid 
thunders  that  seemed  the  voice  of  God,  had,  swollen 
by  many  a  prophetic  rill,  forced  its  way  round  the 
boulders  of  native  infidelity,  between  the  banks,  now 
overhanging  and  again  meeting,  of  foreign  oppression, 
and  had  come  into  a  clear  and  open  place ;  the  other 
had  started  from  the  foot  of  Mount  Olympos,  had 
flowed  onward,  answering  with  woven  and  mystic  music 
the  multitudinous  laughter  of  the  ^gean,  through  the 
heroic  fields  of  epic  and  the  amorous  glades  of  lyric 
song,  had  stolen  through  the  woods  sacred  to  tragedy, 
now  dark  and  fearful  as  midnight,  now  gleaming  with 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  shore,  had  glided  past 
"  the  olive  grove  of  Academe,"  and  under  the  porch  of 
the  Stoics,  until  it  had  broadened  into  a  soft  and  limpid 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 


301 


lake.  And  in  the  fulness  of  the  time  the  long  converg- 
ing streams  joined.  In  obscurity  and  suffering  a  new 
faith  arose,  had  as  its  founder  the  sweetest,  holiest  of 
beings,  in  whom  his  own  and  after  ages  saw  God  as 
well  as  Man.  His  death  was  everywhere  preached  as 
the  basis  of  a  new  but  permanent  religion  of  Humanity, 
and  time  has  only  served  to  define  and  strengthen  its 
claims. 

"  Is  it  not  strange,  the  darkest  hour 
That  ever  dawned  on  sinful  earth, 
Should  touch  the  heart  with  softer  power 
For  comfort,  than  an  angel's  mirth  ? " 

But  its  strange  might  to  quicken  the  best  and  subdue 
the  worst  in  man  had  never  existed  had  it  not  possessed 
as  parents,  on  the  one  side,  Hebrew  Monotheism,  on 
the  other  humanistic  Hellenism. 

Hebraism  and  Hellenism  had  thus  each  its  own  part 
to  play  in  the  Preparationes  Evangelicce.  The  one  con- 
tributed the  Monotheism,  the  other  the  Theo-anthropo- 
morphism,  w^hich  lie  at  the  basis  of  Christianity.  When 
driven  out  of  Judaism  it  carried  into  the  gentile  world 
a  few^  doctrines  it  had  inherited  from  its  foster-parent, 
and  a  few  simple  facts  peculiarly  its  own.  Had  there 
been  no  expulsion  there  had  been  no  Christianity; 
within  the  Synagogue  there  was  room  for  the  sect  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  none  for  the  religion  of  Christ. 
The  Christian  facts  bore  to  the  Hellenic  mind  another 
meaning  than  they  had  borne  to  the  Hebrew,  especially 
as  they  had  to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  Mono- 
theistic and  Messianic  beliefs  of  the  land  whence  they 
had  come.  These  facts  were  construed  into  doctrines 
which  expressed  and  retained  whatever  was  of  ethical 
and  permanent  value  in  Hellenism,  without  losing  what 


302 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION. 


was  universal  and  moral  in  Hebraism.  The  purest 
Monotheism,  which  forbade  God  and  nature  or  God 
and  man  to  be  either  confounded  or  compared,  was 
married  to  the  most  perfect  Humanism,  and  ever  since 
Christianity  has  stood  loyally  by  both  the  "  God  who  so 
loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son  " 
for  its  life,  and  the  Son  who  has  ever  seemed  "  the 
brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,"  "  full  of  grace  and 
truth." 

This  essay  might  at  this  point,  had  .space  allowed, 
have  entered  on  a  new  field  of  inquiry  and  illustration. 
The  genius  of  race  has  contributed  to  the  development 
both  of  Christianity  in  general  and  those  specific 
varieties  of  it  that  are  known  as  the  Greek,  the  Latin, 
and  the  Protestant  Churches.  The  Hellenic  mind, 
educated  into  capacity  to  interpret  the  Christian  facts 
through  the  Hebrew  faith,  created  those  theo-anthro- 
pomorphic  doctrines  which  have  ever  since  been  regard- 
ed as  the  most  distinctively  catholic  and  the  most 
essentially  orthodox.  The  Latin  mind,  less  speculative, 
more  practical,  political  rather  than  theological  in 
genius,  while  it  touched  doctrine  only  to  exaggerate  it 
often  in  a  very  dismal  way,  was  yet  able  to  frame  a 
Church  polity  on  the  old  imperial  model,  to  build  a 
civitas  Dei  where  the  civitas  Roma  once  stood,  giving  to 
its  visible  head  such  absolute  authority  and  divine 
honors  as  the  emperor  had  once  claimed,  to  its  subjects 
such  rights  and  privileges,  only  spiritualized,  as  the 
Roman  citizen  had  once  enjoyed.  The  Teutonic  mind, 
fresh,  vigorous,  childlike  in  its  simplicity  and  love  of 
reality,  without  either  the  blessing  or  the  bane  of  a 
splendid  intellectual  past  like  Greece,  or  an  illustrious 
political   history  like   Rome,  accustomed   to  love  the 


THE  RACES  IN  RELIGION:  303 

beautiful  as  embodied  in  woman,  to  enjoy  the  order  and 
freedom  peculiar  to  lands  where  the  national  will 
is  the  highest  law,  and  obedience  to  it  the 
highest  duty,  could  not  be  satisfied  with  the  inflexible 
dogmatism  of  the  Greek,  or  the  iron  ecclesiasticism  of 
the  Latin  Church.  The  Teuton  loved  liberty  in  religion 
as  elsewhere,  asserted  his  right  to  get  it,  to  stand 
before  God  for  himself,  to  cultivate  his  domestic 
affections  free  from  the  shadow  of  a  sacerdotal  but  un- 
sanctified  celibacy.  While  reverent  to  the  past  as  his 
fathers  had  been,  he  could  not  allow  it  to  tyrannize 
over  the  present,  or  rule  the  destinies  of  the  future. 
And  so  he  had  to  force  his  way  into  a  religion  roomy 
and  elastic  enough  to  suit  natures  that  anticipated  con- 
tinual progress,  and  the  changes  it  brings.  Christianity 
as  an  authoritative  letter  is  Latin,  as  a  free  spirit  is 
Teutonic.  The  former  is  the  refuge  of  those  who  feel 
there  is  no  safety  but  in  adherence  to  an  accomplished 
and  exhausted  past ;  the  latter  is  the  hope  of  those  who 
can  trust  themselves  to  a  progressive  and  fruitful 
future.  The  sanctities  of  the  Latin  as  artificial  and 
arbitrary  are  moribund ;  of  the  Teuton  as  natural  and 
essential  are  immortal  as  the  humanity  which  God  in- 
habits and  inspires. 

But  these  are  matters  that  cannot  be  touched  here 
and  now.  Enough  to  say,  Christianity  does  not  depend 
for  either  its  existence  or  its  authority  on  theories  of 
Infallibility  or  Inspiration.  God  reveals  himself  in  Hu- 
manity, and  his  voice  can  cease  to  speak  only  when  the 
organ  ceases  to  be.  As  man  cannot  outgrow  his  own 
nature,  so  he  cannot  leave  behind  the  faith  that  is  rooted 
in  it.  The  struggle  of  faith  and  doubt  will  be  perpetual, 
renewed  in  every  generation  under  fresh  forms,  ending 


304  THE  races;  in  religion. 

in  each  only  to  enter  upon  another  phase  with  another 
disposition  of  forces.  The  limitations  within  which 
man  must  think  will  always  give  to  doubt  its  more  or 
less  plausible  argument ;  the  necessities  within  which 
man  must  live  will  always  give  to  faith  its  victorious 
answer.  And  so  we  are  certain,  that  while  new  know- 
ledge may  change,  it  can  never  abolish  ancient  religion 
—that  remaining  permanent  as  man.  Science,  with  its 
new  conception  of  nature,  may  annul  the  old  conception 
of  God,  but  the  invincible  faith  in  Him,  which  will  ever 
create  a  new  conception  of  Him,  science  cannot  touch, 
because,  on  its  present  plane,  science  cannot  know.  As 
the  generations  behind  us  have  transformed  while  trans- 
mitting the  grosser  ancient  into  the  grander  modern 
religions,  so  our  age  will  purify  and  exalt  its  faith  while 
handing  it  on  to  the  future,  and  after  ages  will  continue 
the  work,  until,  perhaps,  in  some  distant  time,  the  old 
conflict  between  Science  and  Religion  will  cease,  and 
the  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  man  be  found  in  their 
ultimate  analysis  to  be — knowledge  of  the  living  yet 
immanent  God. 


THE  RACES  IN  LITERATURE 


305 


PART  I. 

THE  RACES  IN  LITERATURE  AND 
PHILOSOPHY, 

I. 

ly /T  AN  is  by  pre-eminence  the  thinker,  realizes  man- 
"*-^-*-  hood  as  he  grows  into  a  conscious  and  creative 
mind.  Men  and  peoples  are  great  in  the  degree  in 
which  they  manifest  spirit,  and  help  the  spirits  of  other 
times  and  lands  to  a  higher  birth  and  a  nobler  growth. 
The  race  that  produces  most  great  men  is  the  greatest 
race,  best  serves  Humanity,  The  orders  of  greatness 
are  indeed  many,  and  differ  as  star  from  star  in  glory. 
Yet  each  has  its  place  and  use.  The  poet  like  Sopho- 
kles  or  Goethe — creative,  subtle,  sensitive  to  the  sunny 
and  translucent  as  to  the  black  and  stormy  cloud,  read- 
ing with  the  intuitive  eye  of  genius  the  struggle  of  will 
and  destiny,  life  and  character,  and  embodying  what  is 
seen  in  torms  whose  perfection  secures  their  immortal- 
ity— refines  thought  by  refining  both  its  instrument  and 
atmosphere,  creates  ideals  that,  whether  realized  or  un- 
realized, help  men — 

"  Im  Ganzen  Guten  Schonen 
Resolut  zu  leben  " 

The  thinker,  like  Plato  or  Aristotle,  Spinoza  or  Hume, 
Kant  or  Hegel,  who  starts  new  problems,  and  attempts 
by  real  or  possible  solutions  to  explain  the  hitherto  un- 

20 


3o6  THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

explained,  awakens  mind  to  many  unperceived  and  even 
undreamt  of  realities,  opens  senses  in  it  that  have  been 
shut,*  and  supplies  it  with  the  fine  gold  it  can  mint  into 
common  coin  for  common  life.  The  highest  literature 
is  the  highest  revelation  of  mind,  and  mind  so  revealed 
is  a  barrier  against  barbarism  of  immeasurable  strength, 
a  stimulus  to  culture  of  indeterminable  potency.  Into 
it  the  subtlest  and  purest  essence  of  the  past  has  been 
distilled,  that  the  present  may  drink  and  enlarge  the 
mind  that  is  by  the  mind  that  has  been.  When  the 
past  has  become  a  quick  and  quickening  spirit  to  the 
present,  human  progress  is  made  not  only  possible,  but 
real  and  sure. 

If,  now,  thought  be  at  once  a  measure  and  a  means 
of  progress,  the  peoples  who  have  not  produced  most, 
but  most  stimulated  others  to  production,  have  been 
fruitful  of  propulsive  and  progressive  forces.  The  two 
ancient  nations  most  typical  of  our  two  great  families — 
the  Hebrews  and  the  Hellenes — were  great  literary  na- 
tions, not  in  the  quantitative,  but  in  the  qualitative  sense 
not  for  what  they  created,  but  what  they  have  made? 
others  create.  To  the  one  we  owe  the  books  that  are  so 
sacred  to  the  Christian  world,  the  records  of  its  faith  ; 
to  the  other  we  owe  the  literature  that  is,  par  excellence^ 
classical,  living  in  our  midst,  unwithered  by  age,  clothed 
in  the  perennial  freshness  which  belongs  to  perennial 
beauty.  Round  the  first  much  of  our  best  philosophy, 
history,  criticism,  much  of  our  noblest  poetry  and  elo- 
quence has  crystallized  ;  from  the  second  there  has 
come,  with  much  more,  our  idea  of  literary  form,  our 

*  So  Hegel  describes  Winckelmann  as  one  of  the  men  "  welche 
im  Felde  der  Kunst  fur  den  Geist  ein  neues  Organ  zu  erschliessen 
wussten  "  ("  Aesthetik,"  vol.  i.  8i). 


AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


307 


Standard  of  literary  perfection.  Heine,  an  apostate 
Hebrew,  but  never  so  Hebraic  as  in  his  apostacy,  divid- 
ed men  into  *'  Jews  and  Greeks,"  or  "  men  with  ascetic, 
iconoclastic,  fanatical  impulses,  and  men  of  sunny,  culti- 
vated, cultivable  and  realistic  natures "  and  a  well 
known  English  critic  has  naturalized  the  distinction, 
and  turned  it  to  varied  and  even  violent  uses.  But  He- 
braism and  Hellenism  are  contrasts,  not  contraries, 
complementary  opposites,  not  irreconcilable  opponents. 
The  cry  for  a  return  to  pure  and  undefiled  Hellenism 
is  vain,  and  false  as  well  as  vain,  the  expression  of  a 
one-sided  and  ungenerous  culture.  The  stern  and  ex- 
alted Hebraic  spirit  was  never  more  needed  than  now. 
Were  it  to  be  lost,  our  modern  manhood  would  soon 
lose  its  greatest  source  of  moral  dignity  and  strength. 
Even  our  noblest  and  most  perfect  modern  Greek,  Goe- 
the, was  Greek  only  on  the  surface,  was  Hebrew  at  the 
heart,  owed  the  balanced  and  beautiful  forms  of  his 
thought  to  Italy  and  Greece,  but  its  most  vital  matter  to 
the  illustrious  Jew  of  Holland.  The  Hebrew  spirit  and 
the  Hellenic  culture  can  serve  the  world  better  married 
than  divorced.  We  need  the  open  mind  that  can  see 
and  enjoy  the  loveliness  of  the  universe  and  the  life  it 
unfolds,  but  we  also  need  the  reverence  that  can  make 
the  joy  divine,  that  can  feel  nature  to  be  but  the  abode 
of  Deity,  whose  presence,  felt  while  veiled,  makes  moun- 
tain, meadow  and  sea  alike  sacred  and  beautiful. 

Literature  is  a  comparatively  late  fruit  of  mind,  a 
blossom  it  can  bear  only  after  ages  of  growth  and  decay. 
If  we  think  of  the  many  centuries  during  which  Egyptian 
civilization  stood  and  flourished,  of  its  genius,  industrial, 
political,  architectural,  of  its  wealth,  refinement,  knowl- 
edge, of  its  highly  organized  society,  with  its  privileged 


3  o8  THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

and  educated  classes,  of  its  most  complex  religion,  at 
once  intellectual  and  ceremonial,  so  interwoven  with  the 
social  system,  yet  so  mined  and  countermined  with 
mysteries  as  to  be  at  once  one  thing  to  all  the  people 
and  many  things  to  each  of  the  initiated,  it  may  seem 
strange  that  Egypt  should  have  had  no  literature  but 
some  crude  records,  embedded  in  a  multitude  of  names 
and  dates,  and  a  few  stories  that  would  be  thought 
childish  were  it  not  for  their  great  age.  But,  in  truth, 
nothing  was  more  natural.  Before  the  most  rudimen- 
tary literature  is  possible  mind  must  have  grown  much 
on  many  sides,  opened  its  eyes  to  many  things,  changed 
life  from  a  struggle  for  existence  against  man  and  nature 
into  a  more  or  less  conscious  and  happy  ability  to  be,  must 
have  made  language  into  a  vehicle  adequate  to  thought, 
invented  intelligible  symbols  for  it,  and  discovered  a 
material  capable  of  preserving  them.  Now,  our  two 
races  do  not  appear  in  history  till  the  older  civilizations 
had  conquered  nature,  discovered  the  more  necessary 
arts,  invented  symbols  for  speech,  and  accomplished, 
as  it  were,  the  orientation  of  mind  for  its  higher  work. 
And  so  the  more  intellectual  of  the  branches  that  first 
inherited  the  past  were  soon  able  to  tell  the  dreams  of 
their  childhood  in  forms  of  simple  grace  the  older 
peoples  had  not  intellect  enough  to  envy,  far  less  imitate, 
and  the  later  peoples  have  never  ceased  to  venerate 
or  admire. 

II. 

Language  is  like  the  raw  material  of  literature,  the 
stones  the  intellect  must  use  whatever  the  structure  it 
builds.     And  the  material  is  as  necessary  to  the  struc* 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  309 

ture  as  the  constructing  mind.  Whatever  the  genius  of 
the  architect,  brick  can  never  be  made  to  do  the  work 
of  marble,  or  granite  of  freestone.  And  so  a  literature 
can  never  transcend  the  language  it  has  to  use.  The 
best  literary  work  is  the  work  most  in  harmony  with  the 
material  it  employs.  But  the  poet  or  orator  does  not 
make  the  language  he  uses,  finds  it,  finds  himself,  too, 
everywhere  conditioned  and  controlled  by  it.  The  men, 
then,  that  made  his  speech  determined  the  limits  within 
which  and  the  lines  along  which  he  must  work.  Language 
is  in  a  sense  the  earliest  literature,  parent  of  all  the  forms 
it  may  afterwards  assume.  In  the  nation  as  in  the 
individual  the  child  is  father  of  the  man  ;  leaves  in  him 
an  unconscious  basis  or  background  of  thought,  which, 
to  a  much  greater  degree  than  he  imagines,  regulates 
his  conscious  thinking.  He  must  be  an  unconscious 
before  he  can  be  a  conscious  poet,  speak  in  artlessly 
artistic  figures  before  he  can  weave  artful  rhymes.  And 
the  speech  of  a  people  is  the  unconscious  poetry  of  its 
youth,  shaping  the  conscious  poetry  of  its  manhood. 
Man  has  now  as  at  first  to  learn  to  speak,  but  he  has 
not  now  as  at  first  to  make  the  speech  he  learns — only 
to  become  possessed  of  one  instinct  with  the  ideas  and 
inspirations  of  the  past,  colored  by  the  lights  and 
shadows  under  which  mind  first  conceived  nature  and 
man.  And  so  the  childhood  that  made  our  speech  made 
at  once  the  medium  in  which  our  thought  lives  and  the 
instrument  by  which  it  works,  and  thus  established  over 
manhood  a  sovereignty  it  always  feels,  but  seldom  per- 
ceives or  understands.' 

The  languages  of  our  two  races  must  then  be  looked 
at  before  the  distinctive  qualities  of  their  literatures  can 
be  understood.     The  glance  can  only  be  of  the  hastiest 


3  T  o  THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

kind,  not  concerning  itself  with  the  philological,  but  with 
the  psychological  features  of  the  respective  families  of 
speech.  While  within  both  families,  but  especially  the 
Indo-European,  thereare  many  dialectical  differences, 
yet  there  are  qualities  common  to  all  the  dialects  that 
can  be  used  for  the  purposes  of  this  discussion. 

The  point  of  difference  that  as  most  superficial  first 
strikes  us  is — the  vocabularies.  The  Indo-European  are 
rich  ;  the  Semitic,  with  one  exception,  poor.  A  language 
wealthy  in  words  can  only  be  the  property  of  a  people 
wealthy  in  thought.  Its  wealth  implies  that  the  men 
who  speak  it  have  observed  and  distinguished  many 
objects,  can  give  varied  expression  to  their  ideas,  and 
discriminate  the  subtle  differences  that  escape  obtuser 
minds.  A  language  poor  in  words  may  be  spoken  by  a 
people  intense  and  exalted,  but  not  by  one  rich  and 
varied  in  thought.  Poverty  in  the  means  of  expression 
implies  poverty  in  the  ideas  to  be  expressed.  And  so 
the  superficial  difference  involves  another  and  deeper. 
The  Indo-European  languages  are  ideal  and  intellectual, 
the  Semitic  are  symbolical  and  sensuous.  The  first 
tend  to  become  abstract,  to  lose  material  in  spiritual 
meanings  and  associations  ;  the  second  tend  to  the 
concrete,  reflect  the  impressions  of  the  senses  as  they 
reflected  the  outer  world.  The  object  of  thought  is 
presented  by  the  former  as  objective,  a  thing  the  intel- 
lect can  pursue  and  seize  ;  but  by  the  latter  as  subjec- 
tive, the  symbol  of  a  sentient  state.  The  Indo-European 
are  the  languages  of  the  spirit,  but  the  Semitic  of  the 
senses,  physiological  where  they  ought  to  be  psycholo- 
gical. Thus  in  Hebrew  to  be  proud  is  to  carry  the  head 
high  ;  to  despair  is  to  have  the  heart  melted  ;  to  be 
angry  is  to  breathe  hard  or  quick,  to  be  displeased  is  to 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  3H 

let  the  countenance  fall.  So,  too,  in  the  region  of 
ethical  ideas.  The  faithful  is  the  stable  ;  the  beautiful 
is  the  splendid ;  the  right  is  the  straight,  the  wrong  the 
crooked.  Some  of  our  emotional  and  ethical  terms  may 
have  been  at  first  as  sensuous,  but  they  have  long  since 
lost,  save  to  the  skilled  philologist,  every  reminiscence 
of  their  physical  or  physiological  origin.  Then,  these 
verbal  differences  are  the  least ;  those  of  structure  are 
deeper  and  more  significant.  The  Indo-European 
languages  are,  as  a  rule,  rich  in  inflections,  and  lend 
themselves  readily  to  many  varieties  of  style  and  expres- 
sion. No  work  of  art  could  be  more  perfect,  sym- 
metrical, transparent  and  flexible  in  form,  than  the 
Greek  tongue.  It  has  been  well  said  that  it  "  resembles 
the  body  of  an  artistically  trained  athlete,  in  which  every 
muscle,  every  sinew,  is  developed  into  full  play,  where 
there  is  no  trace  of  tumidity  or  of  inert  matter,  and  all 
is  power  and  life."*  The  verb,  with  its  1200  inflections, 
can  express  every  point  of  time,  every  phase  or  mood  of 
mind,  can  be  made  as  subtly  to  hint  as  roundly  to  affirm, 
can  embody  with  equal  ease  and  grace  the  cold,  objec- 
tive narrative  of  the  historian,  the  impassioned  appeal 
or  invective  of  the  orator,  the  swift  coming  fancies, 
changing  emotions  or  measures  of  the  poet,  and  the 
abstract  ideas  and  abstruse  reasonings  of  the  philoso- 
pher. But  the  Hebrew  verb  has  few  modal  or  temporal 
inflections,  has,  indeed,  no  proper  tense,  only  forms  that 
express  an  action  as  finished  or  unfinished,  perfect  or 
imperfect.  Then,  too,  the  Indo-European  languages  are 
rich  in  qualifying  and  copulative  words,  particles  that 
can  modify  word  or  clause  or  sentence,  and  invest  it 

*  Curtius,  "  Hist,  of  Greece,"  i.  24. 


312 


THE  RACES  IN  LITERATURE 


with  a  meaning  the  practised  eye  alone  can  discover. 
But  the  Semitic  tongues  are,  perhaps,  poorer  in  modal, 
relational,  and  copulative  particles  than  in  anything  else. 
And  hence  their  capabilities  are  necessarily  limited. 
Their  style  must  be  simple,  can  never  become  complex. 
They  are  lyrical  rather  than  epic  or  dramatic,  descrip- 
tive rather  than  metaphysical  or  oratorical.*  They  are 
so  sensuous  as  to  be  eminently  picturesque,  but  as 
eminently  unscientific.  As  M.  Renanf  has  said,  "  To 
imagine  an  Aristotle  or  a  Kant  with  such  an  instrument 
is  as  impossible  as  to  conceive  an  Iliad  or  a  poem  like 
that  of  Job  written  in  our  metaphysical  and  complicated 
languages."  And  as  is  the  speech,  so  is  the  mind  it 
expresses.  The  qualities  of  the  tongue  are  the  qualities 
of  the  spirits  that  speak  it. 

And  as  the  languages  are,  so  have  the  literatures 
been.  The  Indo-European,  whether  his  home  has  been 
in  India  or  Greece,  Italy  or  Persia,  England  or  Germany, 
has  been  able  to  shape  his  elastic  and  mobile  speech 
into  every  variety  of  poetry.  He  has  been  lyrical,  now 
in  songs  glowing  with  the  warmth  or  moving  to  the 
rhythm  of  man's  strong  love,  and  again  in  hymns,  here 
gushing  from  the  soul  like  the  spring  bursting  from  the 
dark  earth  into  the  glad  sunlight,  there  gliding  like  the 
hidden  brook  under  leafy  shades.  He  has  been  epical, 
too,  now  in  an  Iliad,  where  gods  that  are  but  magnified 

*  Ewald,  "  Ausfiihrliches  Lehrbuch  der  Heb.  Spr.,"  p.  30,  6th 
ed. 

t  "  Hist,  des  Langues  Semit,"  18.  The  views  of  M.  Renan  are 
admirably  epitomized  and  illustrated  by  Mr.  Farrar,  "  Families  of 
Speech,"  pp.  1 18-128.  I  have  also  to  confess  my  obligations  here 
to  Professor  Steinthal's  "  Charakteristik  der  Hauptsiichlichen 
Typen  des  Sprachbaues,"  pp.  241  ff. 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  313 

men  and  men  that  are  hardly  diminished  gods  gloriously 
mingle  in  battle  and  victory  and  defeat ;  now  in  a 
Ramayana  or  a  Maha-Bharata,  where  are  reflected  the 
struggles  through  many  centuries  of  priests  and  princes, 
peoples  and  faiths ;  now  in  a  Nibelungenlied,  with  its 
old  yet  ever  fresh  story  of  valor  and  love,  jealousy  and 
revenge.  He  has  been  dramatic,  too,  has  made  the 
tragedy  the  mirror  of  a  moral  order  that  could  not 
allow  its  majesty  to  be  insulted,  and  the  comedy  express 
his  hatred  of  the  new  evil  that  was  corroding  the  an- 
cient good.  But  the  Semite,  intense  and  narrow,  un- 
equal to  the  sustained  and  lofty  march  of  the  epic,"*  to 
the  subtle  analysis  and  complex  action  of  the  drama, 
has  been  great  in  the  lyric,  the  song  the  impassioned 
son  of  the  desert  sings  to  the  maiden  he  waits  to  bear 
away  on  his  swift  steed,  in  the  psalm  in  which  the  penitent 
weeps  his  sorrow  for  sin,  or  the  worshipper  praises  Him 
who  is  from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  or  the  victorious 
warrior  extols  the  Lord  who  hath  triumphed  gloriously. 
The  Indo-European  has  been  philosophical  and  scien- 
tific, questioning  nature,  inquiring  at  man  ;  but  the  Sem- 
ite has  been  incurious,  intuitive,  so  satisfied  with  his  the- 
istic  conception  as  seldom  to  feel  the  need  of  travel- 
ling beyond  it.  The  languages  of  the  first  are  rich,  but 
the  second  poor  in  oratory.  The  man  who  guides  the 
Indo-European  state  is  the  orator,  wise  and  persuasive 
in  speech,  able  to  save  or  serve  the  state  as  he  can,  by 
brave  words  give  courage  to  her  warriors,  by  prudent 

*  The  Assyrian  discoveries  have,  indeed,  revealed  the  existence 
of  Babylonian  legends  of  an  epic  character,  but  they  can  hardly  be 
regarded  as  Semitic  ptir  et  sinifle.  See  Schrader,  "Die  Hollen- 
fahrt  der  Istar,"  p.  58.  On  the  other  hand,  Steinthal,  "  Der  Semit- 
ismus,"  "  Zeitschr.  d.  Volkerpsychol.,"  vol.  viii.  pp.  359  ff. 


314 


THE  RACES  IN  LITERATURE 


counsels  guide  her  fathers,  or  by  reason  and  passion 
weld  into  unity  of  action  and  purpose  the  incoherent 
demos.  But  the  man  who  claims  to  guide  the  Semitic 
state  is  the  seer,  the  prophet,  the  speaker  for  God,  who 
in  vision  or  ecstasy  has  received  the  word  which  he 
must  speak  to  king  and  people  and  which  they  ought  to 
obey.  These  are  real,  not  imaginary,  differences, 
patent  in  the  respective  languages  and  literatures, 
latent  in  the  minds  that  made  them.  The  races 
approach  man  and  his  problems  from  different  stand- 
points, conceive  and  solve  them  differently,  and  the 
differences  which  have  thus  arisen  explain  the  work 
they  have  respectively  done  in  the  world  of  thought. 


III. 


The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  exhibit  these  differ- 
ences in  their  reciprocal  and  complementary  action  ;  in 
other  words,  to  show  how  the  mind  of  the  one  race  has 
at  once  stimulated  and  supplemented  the  mind  of  the 
other.  But  before  attempting  to  deal  historically  and 
critically  with  the  differences,  we  must  attempt  to  in- 
dicate their  source. 

The  Indo-European  and  Semitic  minds  seem  to  differ 
in  the  general  notion  of  nature  and  man,  which  is,  as 
it  were,  the  unconscious  or  implicit  basis  of  all  their 
conscious  or  explicit  thought.  The  Indo-European 
appears  to  have  had  as  its  common  first  principle  or 
starting-point  a  monistic,  or  natural,  or  cosmic  concep- 
tion ;  but  the  Semitic  a  conception  dualistic,  super- 
natural, theistic.  To  the  one  nature  was  living,  self- 
existent,   creative ;    but   to   the    other    dead,   caused, 


AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


z-^i 


created.  The  Indo-European  deities  were  natural, 
stood  within,  not  above,  nature,  elements  of  the  abiding 
yet  transitory  universe ;  but  the  Semitic  were  super- 
natural, stood  above,  not  within,  nature,  its  causes,  not 
its  creatures.  Hence,  as  we  have  seen,  the  gods  of  the 
one  family  differed  in  names  and  nature,  attributes  and 
powers,  from  those  of  the  other.  To  the  one  the  idea 
of  a  divine  creator  was  native,  to  the  other  alien.  The 
Indo-European  religions  were  all  transfigured  natural- 
isms. The  one  that  became  most  ethical  and  spiritual 
— Zoroastrism — bore  in  its  most  distinctive  features  the 
evidences  of  its  descent.  Light  and  darkness,  trans- 
formed into  ethical  entities,  became  Ahriman  and 
Ormuzd,  the  good  and  the  evil  spirit ;  and  personalized 
Time,  the  infinite,  creating,  governing,  yet  devouring 
all  things  and  beings.  But  the  Semitic  religions  were  in 
general  supernaturalisms.  Their  gods  were  creators 
and  lords,  sources  of  life,  causes  of  death,  unwithered 
by  time,  untouched  by  decay. 

Now,  this  difference  in  what  may  be  termed  the  im- 
plicit premiss  of  every  mental  process,  may  be  traced 
to  a  double  cause,  an  ideal  and  a  real,  or  a  material  and 
formal.  The  ideal  or  material  cause  was  psychical, 
mental ;  the  real  or  formal  was  physical,  natural.  There 
was  a  creative  faculty  which  gave  the  matter,  and  a 
stimulating  nature  which  supplied  the  form  of  the  primal 
idea.  The  Indo-European,  familiar  with  a  varied  and 
fruitful  nature,  conceived  it  as  living;  the  Semite,  with 
one  monotonous  and  desert,  conceived  it  as  dead.  To 
the  one  the  physical,  to  the  other  the  personal,  was 
the  great  creative  force.  The  Indo-European,  pre-emi- 
nently imaginative,  conceived  the  whole  as  alive  and 
the  source  of  life ;   the  Semite,  pre-eminently  ethical, 


3i6  THE  RACES  IN  LITERA  TURE. 

conceived  the  individual  as  the  source  of  being  and 
authority.  The  one  was  objective,  the  other  subjective  ; 
and  so  their  standpoints  were  respectively  natural  and 
impersonal,  and  supernatural  and  personal. 

These  differences  of  standpoint  and  idea  distinctly 
emerge  in  the  respective  mythologies.  The  Indo-Euro- 
pean were  cosmological,  but  the  Semitic  theological  and 
genealogical.  The  first  were  objective  and  natural,  the 
second  subjective  and  historical.  The  Indo-European 
mythologies  are  simply  the  interpretation  of  nature  by 
the  imagination,  acting  spontaneously.  They  became 
unintelligible  to  a  later  age,  because  the  later  lost  the 
mind  of  the  earlier,  the  eyes  with  which  it  looked  on 
nature  and  read  into  it  a  meaning  too  simple  to  be  seen 
by  self-conscious  and  inquiring  men.  The  notion  that 
they  must  have  been  concealed  science,  or  disguised 
philosophy,  or  distorted  traditions,  or  misunderstood 
history,  was  the  result  of  a  reflective  trying  to  interpret 
through  itself  a  spontaneous  age  and  faith.  But  the 
interpretations,  though  often  both  violent  and  ingenious, 
could  find  no  sense  or  reason  in  the  old  mythologies, 
could  not,  because  seeking  what  did  not  exist.  They 
had  arisen  without  purpose  or  design,  even,  it  might  be 
said,  without  thought.  They  were  creations  of  the  im- 
agination clothed  in  forms  supplied  by  the  senses  and  the 
memory.  To  it  heaven  and  earth  were  alive  ;  the  words 
that  denoted  natural  denoted  living  objects.  There 
was  no  death.  The  dread  thing  so  named  was  by  its 
very  name  realized  and  vivified.  Nature  and  man  so 
interpenetrated  that  it  lived  in  his  life,  supplied  his 
fancy  with  forms  it  personalized,  real  then,  though  gro- 
tesque now,  and  radiant  with  a  light  the  cultured  imagi- 
nation of  to-day  can  never  restore.     The  universe  pulsed 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  317 

with  multitudinous  life  ;  what  was  in  man  was  in  it ;  in 
it,  therefore  in  him.  The  forest  was  musical  with  living 
voices,  the  midnight  heaven  alive  with  listening  stars, 
the  pale-faced  moon  full  of  weird  influences,  and  the 
glorious  sun  as  it  broke  from  the  bosom  of  the  dawn  a 
glad  presence  scattering  the  darkness  that  terrified. 
And  when  these  fancies  were  thrown  into  speech  the 
speech  formed  a  mythology,  a  veracious  reflection  of 
mind  in  a  period  of  beautiful  yet  creative  simplicity,  a 
dark  enigma  to  mind  perplexed  with  a  thousand  prob- 
lems, seeking  in  the  ancient  beliefs  a  wisdom  higher 
than  its  own. 

But  the  Semitic  mythologies  had  an  essentially  differ 
ent  character.  It  is  necessary,  indeed,  to  be  here 
cautious.  Certain  myths  hitherto  believed  to  be  dis- 
tinctively Semitic  are  being  traced  to  Turanian  sources. 
But  this  only  allows  us  to  be  more  definite  and  precise, 
to  perceive  what  are  really  the  essential  features  of  the 
Semitic  mythologies.  They  were  theological  and  his- 
torical. They  are  not  imaginative  interpretations  of 
nature.  Their  nature  is  dead,  owes  its  being,  life,  and 
energy  to  the  gods.  They  are  eminently  cosmogonic, 
concerned  with  the  beginnings  of  things  as  the  oldest 
Indo-European  myths  never  are.  And  as  they  are,  on  the 
one  side,  theological,  they  are,  on  the  other,  historical. 
As  the  Semitic  conceived  the  person  to  be  the  great 
force  in  nature,  he  also  conceived  him  to  be  the  great 
force  in  history.  The  living  present  ever  seemed  to 
him  made  by  the  men  of  the  immemorial  past.  He  was 
greater,  indeed,  in  memory  than  imagination,  and  so  he 
became  the  genealogist  of  the  world,  marking  time  and 
making  nations  by  patriarchs.  His  mythologies  were 
thus  intensely  subjective  and  personal,  cosmogonies  on 


3 1 8       THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE. 

the  one  side,  genealogies  on  the  other,  persons  being  to 
him  supreme  ahke  in  nature  and  history. 

Mythology  is  nascent  literature,  spontaneous  poetry. 
And  poetry  is  the  form  the  first  conscious  literature 
everywhere  assumes.  Here,  then,  the  poetries  of  our 
two  families  ought  to  have  been  exhibited  as  mirrors 
of  the  racial  mind.  But  the  subject  is  too  vast  to  be 
here  handled.  Enough  to  say,  the  poetry  of  the  one 
family  has  been  imaginative,  objective,  representing  the 
infinite  variety  of  elements  in  nature  and  man,  but  that 
of  the  other  has  been  emotional,  subjective,  expressing 
devotion  or  passion,  love  or  hate,  as  God  or  man,  friend 
or  foe  was  addressed.  Indo-European  poetry  has  grown 
with  the  race,  has  claimed  whatever  was  man's  as  mat- 
ter it  could  make  its  own,  has  widened  with  mind,  deep- 
ened with  thought,  become  varied  and  complex  as  ex- 
perience has  multiplied  the  material  it  could  idealize 
and  represent.  It  has  been  sensitive  to  every  shadow 
that  has  fallen  upon  the  spirit,  to  every  change  in  the 
relations  of  mind  to  nature  and  man.  In  ages  of  action, 
when  men  loved  the  heroic  and  the  chivalrous,  it  has 
been  full  of  adventure  and  enterprise,  oblivious  of  the 
thinker's  questions,  alive  to  the  glory  of  strength  and 
courage  and  warlike  achievement.  In  times  of  ease  and 
luxury,  it  has  known  how  to  indulge  the  heart,  how  to 
idealize  the  lust  of  the  eye  and  the  pride  of  life.  In 
seasons  when  patriotism  has  sublimed  or  faith  trans- 
figured, or  doubt  perplexed,  or  discovery  widened  and 
enlarged  the  spirit,  its  poetry  has  responded  to  its  mood, 
^schylos  may  weave  into  his  tragedies  the  ancient 
legends  of  his  people,  but  he  informs  them  with  a  new 
spirit  and  meaning,  makes  them  speak  of  a  moral  order, 
an  inflexible  law,  which  inspires  with  a  strength  and 


AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


319 


touches  with  a  terror  the  men  of  the  Homeric  age 
never  knew.  Sophokles  may  find  the  material  of  his 
dramas  in  the  stories  current  among  his  countrymen, 
but  he  makes  them  the  vehicles  of  his  own  thoughts, 
expressive  of  a  new  and  more  perfect  idea  of  man,  the 
consciousness  of  the  ethical  worth  and  significance  of 
life  which  marked  the  age  when  philosophy  turned  from 
speculating  about  nature  to  inquire  at  man.  Shakespere 
may  find  in  history  or  old  romance  the  material  of  his 
plays,  but  he  makes  his  matter  the  home  of  a  universal 
spirit,  inspires  it  with  a  meaning  that  enables  men  ever 
after  to  feel  more  deeply  the  immensity  and  the  mystery 
of  life.  And  ever  has  Indo-European  poetry  been  as 
progressive  as  Indo-European  mind,  most  objective 
when  it  seems  most  subjective.  The  subject  has  been 
but  a  conscious  object,  mind  aware  of  self  as  a  mirror 
of  the  universe,  the  one  as  the  eye  that  reflected  the  all. 
The  Divina  Commedia  represents  the  faith  not  of  a  man, 
but  of  an  age ;  "  the  thought  it  lived  by  stands  here,  in 
everlasting  music."  Faust  is  not  Goethe,  but  the  uni- 
versal student,  athirst  for  knowledge,  in  search  of  truth, 
mocked  by  the  empty  forms  that  hide  while  they  pro- 
fess to  reveal  it.  Wordsworth's  was  a  universal  sub- 
jectivity, the  modern  spirit  aiming  at  the  higher  and 
more  conscious  imaginative  interpretation  of  nature. 
As  thought  has  increased  in  mass,  variety  and  complex- 
ity, imagination  has  developed  the  energy  that  could 
poetically  represent  and  present  it.  "  Le  silence  eternel 
de  ces  espaces  infinis  m'effraie,"  says  Pascal,  contem- 
plating a  starlight  night ;  but  out  of  the  terror  caused 
by  the  deepening  sense  of  the  infinite  space  and  time 
lying  round  our  little  conscious  moment,  there  has  ever 
come  the.  material  the  creative  phantasy  could  shape  to 


3  2  o  THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE. 

its  own  high  ends,  making  its  creations  as  varied  and 
manifold  as  the  universe  they  reflect. 

But  Semitic  poetry  has  not  been  rich  and  progressive, 
but  intense  and  exalted,  subjective  and  passionate.  It 
has  been  sensuous  rather  than  imaginative,  the  symbol 
of  strong  emotions  rather  than  the  vehicle  of  creative 
thought.  It  has  represented  with  unequalled  power 
the  intensities  of  love  and  hate,  the  feeling  of  a  man 
in  the  extasy  of  admiration  or  aversion.  It  has  prayed 
to  and  praised  God,  has  blessed  and  cursed  man  as  no 
other  poetry  has  done.  It  is  seldom  ideal,  almost  al- 
ways real  and  personal.  The  very  strength  of  the  He- 
brew Psalms  is  the  intensity  of  the  personal  element. 
The  subjective  state  is  objectified  and  realized,  the 
object  of  faith  is  known,  trusted,  loved  like  an  object 
of  sight.  The  Semite  believes  as  he  perceives,  his  faith 
is,  in  a  sense,  sensuous.  And  hence  its  peculiar  force, 
its  power  to  inspire  him,  to  utter  itself  in  words  that 
can  inspire  us.  The  Hebrew  Psalms  stand  alone  in 
poetry,  mightiest  and  most  moving  utterances  of  faith  in 
an  invisible  but  realized  God.  What  made  the  Semitic 
spirit  so  potent  here,  made  it  impotent  elsewhere.  It 
has,  indeed,  in  one  of  its  most  beautiful  and  per- 
fect creations,  striven  to  become  dramatic,  to  use  the 
drama,  too,  as  a  theodicy.  The  Hebrew  seldom  felt 
that  his  sublime  Monotheism  needed  defence.  The 
ways  of  God  justified,  or  would  justify  God.  If  they 
were  dark  and  perplexing  to  the  present,  they  would  be 
bright  and  serene  enough  to  the  future.  But  there  was 
one  thing  that  puzzled  even  the  Hebrew — the  prosperity 
of  the  wicked,  the  misfortunes  of  the  righteous.  Once 
he  had  thought  that  a  happy  and  prosperous  life  was 
the  reward  of  God,  certain  to  the  obedient,  impossible 


A,VD  PHILOSOPHY.  321 

to  the  disobedient.  But  facts  were  too  strong  for  his 
simple  faith.  The  bad  were  t)ften  seen  great  in  power, 
the  good  desolate  and  oppressed.  Why  these  inequali- 
ties of  lot  ?  Why  should  a  man  serve  God  ?  For  wealth, 
or  health,  or  something  better,  though  less  perceiDtible 
than  either  ?  Out  of  these  questions  came  the  Book  of 
Job,  the  nearest  approach  to  a  dramatic  composition 
the  Semitic  spirit  ever  made.  It  has,  indeed,  a  signifi- 
cance far  higher  than  the  poetical ;  yet  as  a  poem  it  has 
helped  us  to  see  in  the  Semite  capabilities  other  than 
lyrical,  real,  though  unrealized. 

IV. 

The  reciprocal  and  complementary  action  of  the  Indo- 
European  and  Semitic  minds  in  the  field  of  philosophy 
is  a  great  subject,  worthy  of  patient  and  penetrative 
study.  Here  we  can  present  it  only  in  the  baldest 
outline. 

I. 

The  older  Semitic  peoples  were  non-philosophical. 
The  later  Greeks,  indeed,  seemed  to  regard  the  East  as 
the  wonderland  whence  all  knowledge  had  come.  The 
men  of  the  Neo-Pythagorean  and  Neo-Platonic  schools 
loved  to  send  the  fathers  of  Greek  philosophy  wander- 
ing through  the  Orient,  gathering  by  intercourse  and 
initiation  and  curious  inquiry  the  secret  lore  of  the  an- 
cients, and  then  to  make  them  return  to  teach  at  home 
what  they  had  learned  abroad.  But  these  pictures  are 
for  the  most  part  fanciful  and  fictitious.*    *  The  older 

*  I  regret  that  it  is  impossible  to  discuss  here  the  many  inter- 
esting and  important  questions  connected  with  the  relation  of 
Greek  philosophy  to  older  and   foreign  thought.     I  hold  Greek 

21 


322  THE  RACES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

Greeks  knew  nothing  of  an  imported  philosophy.  There 
was  no  philosophy  for  them  to  import.  The  East  stim- 
ulated the  West  to  philosophic  thought,  but  not  by  giv- 
ing it  philosophies.  It  sent  knowledge  of  men  and 
rations,  of  the  means  of  intercourse,  of  arts  and  indus- 
tries, of  individual  doctrines  or  sciences,  but  not  of  any 
constructive  or  interpretative  science  of  nature  or  spirit. 

philosophy  to  have  been,  clown  to  Aristotle  and  in  a  less  degree 
after  him,  in  everything  essential  native  to  Greece.  The  contrary 
was  long  the  dominant  opinion,  but  it  was  mostly  based  on  author- 
ities too  recent  to  be  trustworthy.  The  men  of  the  Alexandrian 
schools  were  the  great  believers  in  the  oriental  origin  of  the  Greek 
systems.  Obligations  acknowledged  by  the  older  Greeks  relate 
chietiy  to  single  doctrines  in  science.  Herodotos  (ii.  8i,  123) 
believed  that  the  Pythagoreans  borrowed  certain  of  their  rites  and 
their  doctrine  of  transmigration  from  Egypt ;  but  he  does  not  go 
the  length  of  deriving  Pythagorean  philosophy  from  a  foreign 
source.  Demokritos,  as  we  know  from  himself  (Clemens  Alex., 
*'  Stromata,"i.  c.  xv.)  was  the  most  travelled  man  of  his  time*;  had 
seen  and  learned  more  of  distinguished  barbarians  than  any  con- 
temporary Greek.  But  he  expressly  says  that  the  Egyptian  mathe- 
maticians did  not  excel  him.  The  later  story  of  his  journey  to 
India  is  evidently  mythical.  There  is  a  passage  in  Plato  on  which 
both  Ritter  ("  Hist  of  Philos.,"  vol.  i.  151)  and  Zeller  ("Geschichte 
der  Philos.,"  i.  23)  lay  great  stress  ('"Repub.,"  iv.  435),  where  love 
of  money,  the  passion  of  the  merchantman,  is  ascribed  to  the  Phoe- 
nicians and  the  Egyptians,  but  love  of  knowledge,  the  passion  of 
the  philosopher,  to  the  Greeks.  If  the  latter  had  been  obligated 
to  the  former  to  the  extent  that  Philo  and  lamblichus  and  Clemens 
repi-esented,  it  is  impossible  Plato  could  have  so  denoted  their 
distinctive  characteristics.  It  is  certain  that  the  Greek  mind  was 
greatly  stimulated  by  contact  with  what  are  called,  with  vague  and 
inaccurate  generality,  the  oriental  nations,  but  the  stimulus  was 
not  due  to  philosophies  which  existed  there.  Travel  was  a  greater 
means  of  culture  then  than  now,  and  the  culture  it  gave  helped  to 
develop  the  philosophical  capacities  of  the  Greeks — a  much  better 
tiling  than  giving  them  philosophies. 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  323 

The  Semites  were  without  the  intellectual  needs  that 
cicate  philosophy.  They  were  related  to  nature  by 
sense  rather  than  by  intellect,  interpreted  it  by  faith 
rather  than  by  reason.  Their  religion  explained  its  be- 
ing;  and  the  explanation  was  sufficient.  To  desire 
more  had  been  not  only  superfluous,  but  impious. 

Philosophy  was  the  peculiar  and  distinctive  creation 
of  the  Indo-European  spirit.  Its  faith  idealized  a  living 
and  present  nature,  had  no  dim  intuition  or  distant 
theory  of  how  it  had  begun  to  be.  The  Indo-Europeans 
did  not  think  of  asking  in  their  spontaneous  and  imagi- 
native period,  how  has  nature  come  to  exist  .'*  They 
were  satisfied  with  the  existing,  the  cosmos,  which  lived 
and  created  life.  It  was  enough  to  know  that  Earth, 
the  all-fruitful  Mother,  was  folded  in  the  embrace  of 
Heaven,  the  all-fertilizing  Father.  The  gods  were  by 
their  very  names  held  fast  in  nature,  parts  of  the  univer- 
sal system,  its  first  and  highest  born,  but  still  its  chil- 
dren, unable  to  transcend  the  limits  imposed  by  their 
birth.  Indra  was  to  the  Hindu  the  all-conquering,  the 
beautiful,  ruddy  and  lustrous  as  the  sun,  hurling  thun- 
derbolts which  could  pierce  the  clouds,  the  cities  of  the 
Asuras,  but  his  functions  were  natural,  not  supernatural, 
those  of  a  creature,  not  of  a  creator.  Zeus  was  to  the 
Greek  the  cloud-compeller,  the  wielder  of  the  thun- 
derbolt, the  bright  and  beneficent  deity  to  whom  the 
Athenians  prayed — 

voov  i'covj  (x>  ^ilt  Zev, 

but  he  v/as  active  in  the  system  as  made,  had  no  relation 
to  it  as  a  maker.  The  Indo-European  could  not,  like  the 
Semite,  "through  faith  understand  that  the  worlds  were 
made  by  the  word  of  God,"  for  his  god  was  in  the  world 


324  ^-^^  ^A  ^^^  ^^  LITER  A  TURE 

one  of  its  phenomena,  needing  to  have  his  own  being 
and  becoming  explained. 

But  a  world  unexplained  by  faith  was  a  perpetual 
challenge  to  reason.  The  man  could  not  remain  for 
ever  an  imaginative  interpreter  of  Nature,  satisfied 
with  the  present,  incurious  as  to  the  past.  Its  interpre- 
tation by  the  intellect  was  as  necessary  to  the  man  as 
its  interpretation  by  the  imagination  had  been  necessary 
to  the  child.  The  more  the  reason  grew,  the  more  it 
was  confronted  by  the  question — How  has  this  universe 
of  gods  and  men  come  to  be  ?  Once  it  was  asked  it 
could  not  but  be  repeated,  each  attempted  answer  but 
provoking  another,  the  mind  being  at  once  fascinated 
and  stimulated  by  the  immense  and  gloomy  depths  into 
which  it  was  compelled  to  look.  Yet  the  search  for 
the  answer  would  be  along  lines  determined  by  the  im- 
plicit premiss.  As  there  was  no  idea  of  a  cause  that 
transcended  nature,  the  cause  w^ould  have  to  be  sought 
within  it.  But  the  search,  though  starting  from  one 
premiss,  might  be  along  two  divergent  lines,  a  subjective 
and  objective.  The  subjective  would  seize  the  life  im- 
manent in  nature  and  man,  and  resolve  all  phenomena 
into  an  emanation  from  it ;  the  objective  would  seek  the 
primal  cause  in  what  seemed  the  most  active  element 
in  the  world  of  visible  appearances.  The  one  would  be 
metaphysical,  the  other  physical,  but  each  in  the  blind 
and  imperfect  way  inevitable  in  a  science  trying  to  begin 
to  be. 

Now,  this  exactly  represents  the  process  by  which 
philosophy  was  born.  The  two  great  philosophical 
peoples  of  antiquity,  the  Hindus  and  the  Greeks,  were 
both  Indo-European.  To  both  philosophy  was  in  the 
truest  sense  native,  a  plant  indigenous  to  the  soil.    Both 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  325 

were  roused  to  speculation  by  the  same  cause,  a  world 
without  a  maker,  a  universe  unexplained,  ceaselessly 
asking  the  intellect  to  explain  it.  But  while  starting 
from  a  common  premiss,  they  followed  different  lines, 
the  one  the  subjective  or  metaphysical,  the  other  the  ob- 
jective or  physical.  The  Hindu,  living  amid  influences 
repressive  of  action,  provocative  of  meditation,  feeling 
everywhere  the  community  of  life  in  the  one  and  the 
many,  in  the  person  arid  in  the  person-creating  All, 
groped  after  an  immanent  cause,  a  creative  entity,  an 
immense  abstraction,  and  found  it  at  first  in  a  Nameless 
Something,  which  no  word  could  qualify.  The  Greek 
spirit,  unfolded  under  the  happiest  natural  and  ethnic 
influences,  free,  active,  heroic,  its  imagination  vivified, 
perfected,  and  immortalized  by  the  ideal  of  man  and 
the  state  which  to  it  had  succeeded  the  early  ideal  of 
nature,  was  not  only  late  in  becoming  speculative,  but 
became  it  by  asking  the  most  pervasive  and  potent  ele- 
ments in  its  bright  world  whether  they  could  tell  whence 
and  how  this  universe  had  come  to  be.  The  introspective 
Hindu  mind  tried  to  evolve  nature  from  an  inexpressible 
entity ;  the  observant  Greek  mind,  apparently  simpler, 
really  subtler,  attempted  to  build  the  world  out  of  the 
forces  it  saw  most  actively  and  creatively  at  work. 

The  differences  here  of  the  Hindu  and  Hellenic  minds 
and  methods  are  most  significant,  and  might  be  amply 
illustrated.  But  one  illustration  must  suffice.  In  the 
tenth  Mandala  of  the  Rig- Veda  there  is  a  celebrated  hymn 
which  asks,  though  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  answer,  the 
question  which  the  Indo-European  naturalism  forced  upon 
the  Indo-European  mind.  It  begins  with  the  idea  of  a 
state,  if  state  it  can  be  called,  prior  to  existence,  when 
"  nothing  that  is,  was  ;  and  even  what  is  not  did  not  then 


326  THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

exist ; "  "  death  was  not,  nor  immortality,  nor  distinction 
of  day  or  night."  Then  "  that  One  breathed  breathless 
by  itself  ;"  and  "there  was  nothing  different  from  it  or 
above  it."  "  Darkness  there  was,  and  all  at  first  was 
veiled  in  gloom  profound,  as  ocean  without  light."  The 
nameless  "  One,"  which  "  lay  void  and  wrapped  in 
darkness,  was  developed  by  the  power  of  fervor,"  Then 
"  desire  arose  in  It,  the  primal  germ  of  mind,"  "  the 
bond  that  connects  entity  with  nonentity."  But  bold  as 
is  the  thinker  and  far  as  he  has  gone  in  the  path  of 
affirmation,  he  has  to  confess  his  problem  insoluble  both 
to  himself  and  the  gods,  and  even  to  the  most  high  seer 
in  heaven.  Here  is  the  hymn  in  full.* 
"  Then  there  was  neither  aught  nor  naught,  no  air  nor  sky  beyond. 

What  covered  all  ?  Where  rested  all  ?   In  watery  gulf  profound  ? 

Nor  death  was  then,  nor  deathlessness,  nor  change  of  night  and 
day, 

That  One  breathed  calmly,  self-sustained ;  nought  else  beyond 
it  lay. 

Gloom  hid  in  gloom  existed  first — one  sea,  eluding  view. 

That  one,  a  void  in  chaos  wrapt,  by  inward  fervor  grew. 

Within  it  first  arose  desire,  the  primal  germ  of  mind, 

Which  nothing  with  existence  links,  as  sages  searching  find. 

The  kindling  ray  that  shot  across  the  dark  and  drear  abyss — 

Was  it  beneath  ?  or  high  aloft  ?     What  bard  can  answer  this .? 

There  fecundating  powers  were  found,  and  mighty  forces  strove,— 

A  self-supporting  mass  beneath,  and  energy  above. 

Who  knows,  who  ever  told,  from  whence  this  vast  creation  rose  ? 

No  gods  had  then  been  born, — who  then    can  e'er  the   truth 
disclose. 

Whence  sprang  this  world,  and  whether  framed  by  hand  divine 
or  no, — 

Its  lord  in  heaven  alone  can  tell,  if  even  he  can  show." 

*  The  translation  is  Dr.  Muir's  "Sansk.  Texts,"  vol.  v.  p.  356 
where  another  and  more  literal  version  will  also  be  found.  The 
hymn  may  also  be  read  translated  in  Max  Miiller's  "  Sansk.  Lit.,** 
564,  but  cf.  pp.  557,  563 ;  Prof.  M.  William's  "  Indian  Wisdom.* 

p.  23. 


AND  PHILOSOFHY.  327 

Now  here  is  the  most  characteristic  specimen  of  early 
Hindu  speculation.  It  is  neither  theistic  nor  physical, 
but  metaphysical,  a  speculative  search  after  the  common 
cause  of  gods  and  men.  Its  source  is  a  One,  a  some- 
thing which  can  be  properly  denoted  by  no  term 
borrowed  from  the  regions  of  reality,  reason,  or  faith. 
Yet  the  thinker,  while  compelled  by  the  laws  of  thought 
to  seek  a  cause  for  the  universe,  hesitates  to  affirm  that 
he  has  found  the  alone  real  and  absolute.  His  intellect 
on  its  sublime  speculative  summit  is  paralyzed  by  doubt. 
The  cause  may  or  may  not  be  a  person,  a  mind.  What 
or  who  it  was  neither  he,  nor  the  gods,  nor  even,  per- 
chance, the  highest  in  heaven  can  tell. 

But  the  early  Greek  method  was  in  almost  every  re- 
spect a  contrast  to  this.  It  did  not  proceed  by  intro- 
spection and  a  regressive  movement  of  thought,  but  by 
the  observation  and  interpretation  of  physical  pheno- 
mena. Thales  perceived  that  all  things  were  nourished 
by  moisture,  that  the  seed  of  all  things  was  humid,  that 
water  was  the  principle  of  the  humid,  and  so  he  formu- 
lated his  doctrine,  "  the  principle  of  all  things  is  water." 
Anaximenes  saw  that  the  air  was  infinite,  surrounded 
and  sustained  the  world,  and  so  he  argued  "  the  primeval 
substance  of  all  things  must  be  air,  for  all  is  produced 
from  it  and  resolved  into  it  again."  Herakleitos,  ob- 
serving the  creative  force  of  heat,  said,  "  The  one  world 
was  made  neither  by  God  nor  man  ;  but  it  was  and  is 
and  ever  shall  be  an  everliving  fire,  in  due  measure 
self-enkindled,  and  in  due  measure  self-extinguished." 
These  were  crude  but  courageous  efforts  to  interpret 
nature  objectively,  through  elements  the  senses  perceiv- 
ed in  active  and  resultful  operation.  To  conceive  them 
as  either  conscious  or  unconscious  breaks  with  Greek  re* 


328        THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

ligion  is  to  misconceive  utterly  the  basis  and  matter  of 
Greek  thought.  Philosophy  was  never  more  perfectly 
in  harmony  with  religion  than  it  was  then.  The  religion 
was  natural;  the  dualism  which  distinguished  matter 
and  spirit,  God  and  nature,  was  then  unknown.  Nature 
could  be  interpreted  only  in  terms  intelligible  to  the 
Greek  spirit,  and  in  methods  it  could  pursue.  Where 
religion  and  thought  were  so  permeated  with  naturalism, 
the  philosophy  could  hardly  be  other  than  physical. 

Philosophy  thus  alike  in  India  and  Greece  rose  out 
of  the  naturalism  common  to  both,  rose  to  supplement 
its  deficiencies,  yet  was  clothed  in  forms  it  suggested 
or  supplied.  Their  thought  pursued  very  dissimilar 
courses,  but  yet  came  here  and  there  to  remarkably 
similar  results.  Their  divergences  were  mostly  due  to 
their  different  methods  ;  their  coincidences  to  the  simi- 
larity at  once  of  their  problem  and  their  premiss.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  Greek  speculative  thought  was  in  its 
creative  period  influenced  by  India.  The  one  had  but 
few  opportunities  to  know  the  other.  The  nations  that 
divided  them  were  but  poor  interpreters.  Persia  was 
of  ancient  Indo-European  states  the  most  intolerant  of 
foreign  faiths  and  systems,  and  Persia  was  the  great 
channel  through  which  the  earlier  knowledge  of  India 
reached  Greece.  The  expedition  of  Alexander  first  made 
the  countries  directly  and  really  known  to  each  other. 
But  the  knowledge  came  too  late  to  do  much  for  Greek 
philosophy.  Its  greatest  period  was  then  just  coming 
to  an  end,  its  work  too  well  and  too  nearly  done  to  be 
much  affected  by  material  it  could  so  little  assimilate,  or 
even  understand.  For  to  know  a  country  is  not  neces- 
sarily to  know  its  higher  and  abstruser  thought.  That 
implies  somewhere  or  other  such  a  knowledge  of  the 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  329 

minds  that  made  the  philosophy  and  the  language  they 
used  as  is  not  won  in  a  day.  The  Greeks  cared  too  little 
for  foreign  tongues  to  care  much  for  foreign  thought, 
studied  the  first  too  little  to  get  readily  initiated  into  the 
mysteries  of  the  second.  Aristotle  might  be  indebted 
to  Alexander  for  the  means  of  enlarging  his  knowledge 
of  nature,  but  hardly  for  his  metaphysics.  The  objects 
the  naturalist  studies  might  be  sent  from  Asia  to  Greece  ; 
but  philosophy  is  not  quite  as  transmissible  as  plants 
and  animals,  especially  when  it  speaks  in  an  unknown 
tongue.  In  short,  it  is  not  only  unproved,  but  eminent- 
ly improbable,  that  Greek  thought  down  to  Aristotle 
was  in  any  way  influenced  by  Indian. 

Yet  their  very  independence  of  each  other  makes  their 
diflerences  and  similarities  peculiarly  significant  to  the 
student  of  the  history  of  thought.  They  had,  it  has  just 
been  said,  the  same  problem  and  premiss,  and  different 
as  were  their  methods  of  solution,  they  could  hardly  fail 
now  and  then  to  agree  in  their  results.  Greece  had  its 
Demokritos,  India  its  Kanada ;  and  of  the  two  atomic 
theories  the  Indian  is  the  more  clearly  conceived,  the 
more  patiently  and  consistently  developed.  The  shadows 
of  the  Platonic  cave  have  a  distant  resemblance  to  the 
illusory  world  of  the  Vedanta,  though  the  realities  that 
are  behind  the  appearances  of  the  Greek  show  on  how 
much  nobler  an  idea  of  being  his  thought  was  founded. 
The  Prakriti,  or  nature,  of  Sankhya,  and  the  matter,  the 
r.pd)-rj  u?.7j,  of  Aristotle,  are  in  many  respects  similar, 
unproduced,  yet  productive,  the  potential  which  is  the 
necessary  condition  of  real  existence.  The  Purusha,  the 
ungenerated  and  ingenerative  spirit  of  the  Indian,  has  a 
certain  resemblance  to  the  vouq  of  the  Greek,  the  creator 


330 


THE  RACES  IN  LITERATURE 


who  moves  all  things  while  himself  unmoved.*  But  these 
are  developmental  coincidences,  points  where  minds 
busied  with  the  same  problem  touch  each  other,  where 
the  analytic  and  synthetic  methods  meet,  though  only  to 
part.  Yet  beneath  these  superficial  resemblances  the 
real  differences  lie.  The  ideas  of  nature  and  person, 
being  and  man,  radically  differ.  To  the  subjective 
Indian  life  was  one,  though  its  forms  were  many  ;  to  the 
objective  Greek  the  one  was  as  real  as  the  all.  Indian 
philosophies  are  to  a  much  greater  degree  than  Greek 
theories  of  knowing  ;  Greek  are  to  a  much  greater  degree 
than  Indian  theories  of  life  and  action.  Both  are  root- 
ed in  nature,  but  while  the  Indian  dissolves  the  idea  of 
the  person  in  the  idea  of  the  universal  life,  one  in  its 
essence,  infinitely  varied  in  its  manifestations,  the  Greek 
sees  in  the  person  the  highest  and  most  imperishable 
product  of  the  creative  power.  Personal  being  is  the 
calamity  of  the  Hindu,  but  the  glory  and  joy  of  the 
Greek.  To  lose  it  was  the  great  desire  of  the  one,  to 
realize  it  the  great  end  of  the  other.     The  practical  aim 

*  In  a  recent  German  work,  Prof.  Schluter's  "  Aristotele's  Meta- 
physik  eine  Tochter  der  Sankhya-Lehre  des  Kapila,"  an  attempt 
is  made  to  affiliate  Aristotle's  metaphysics  to  the  Sankhya  system. 
But  the  attempt  is  most  unsuccessful ;  is  unsupported  by  any  criti- 
cal or  historical  evidence.  It  is  not  enough  to  prove  that  there 
are  resemblances  between  the  two  systems  ;  it  is  necessary  to  prove 
that  the  resemblances  are  due  to  derivation  or  appropriation. 
And  this  the  author  never  tries  to  do.  The  resemblances  are,  as 
they  are  named  in  the  text,  *'  developmental  coincidences ; " 
and  mark  profound  and  radical  differences.  The  idea  that  coin- 
cidences or  similarities  of  doctrine  involve  derivation,  was  made 
by  Roth  and  Gladisch  the  ground  of  their  endeavors  to  affiliate 
the  successive  Greek  philosophies  to  oriental  parents.  But  their 
efforts  were  not  of  the  kind  to  encourage  imitation—  though  evi- 
dently they  have  not  checked  it. 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  331 

ot  every  Indian  philosophy  is  to  teach  the  soul  how  its 
personal  existence  may  be  made  to  cease ;  but  the  aim 
of  the  greater  Greek  philosophies  is  to  teach  the  man, 
how  his  personal  being  may  be  perfected.  The  first 
have  little,  but  the  second  pre-eminent,  political  signific- 
ance. The  great  Indian  thinkers  were  too  anxious  to 
escape  from  the  present  and  the  personal  to  be  concern- 
ed with  the  state ;  but  the  great  Greek  thinkers  were  so 
anxious  to  exalt  the  present  and  the  personal  that  their 
chief  practical  problem  was  how  to  make  each  citizen 
contribute  to  the  perfection  of  the  state  and  the  state  to 
the  perfection  of  all  its  citizens.  Indian  philosophy 
may  thus  be  said  to  be  man  interpreted  through  nature, 
but  Greek,  nature  interpreted  through  man.  The  sub- 
jective starting-point  results  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  in- 
dividual to  the  universe  ;  but  the  objective  in  the  glori- 
fication of  the  universe  through  the  individual. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  the  necessity  of  phil- 
osophy to  the  Indo-European  mind,  and  to  indicate  the 
reasons  why  and  the  point  in  which  the  philosophical 
Indo-European  peoples  of  antiquity  at  once  differed  and 
agreed.  Here  we  ought  to  discuss  the  influence  of  their 
philosophies  on  the  history  of  mind.  But  that  is  so 
great  a  subject  that  we  can  hardly  dare  even  glance  at 
it  here.  Enough  to  say,  while  India  exercised  a  vast 
influence  in  ancient  Asia,  especially  through  Buddhism, 
which  had  a  philosophic  basis  if  not  a  philosophic  birth, 
a  much  less  and  late  and  chiefly  indirect  influence  in 
Europe,  Greece  through  her  philosophy  became  at  once, 
and  has  ever  since  continued  to  be,  in  the  pro- 
portion in  which  she  has  been  known,  an  enor- 
mous  intellectual  power.  The  worth  of  the  Greek  phil- 
osophies is  to  be  measured  not  by  the  amount  of  truth 


332 


THE  RACES  IN  LITERATURE 


they  discovered,  but  by  the  strength  of  the  stimulus 
they  have  given  and  continue  to  give  to  mind.  It  is 
easy  to  be  the  critic  alike  of  their  matter  and  method, 
but  not  so  easy  to  be  the  impartial  judge  of  their  his- 
torical and  intellectual  worth.  They  might  be  said  to 
exhaust  the  premisses  that  lay  in  the  Indo-European 
idea  of  nature  and  man.  The  pre-sokratic  schools  were 
physical  and  mathematical ;  nature  was  studied  without 
man  while  by  him.  They  all  assumed  that  truth  could 
be  known,  a  cause  discovered,  and  looked  in  the  sur- 
rounding world  for  what  they  believed  to  be.  But  the 
Sophists  arose,  denied  that  truth  was  discoverable,  or 
that  man  could  by  speculation  find  it,  and  declared  that 
what  man  ought  to  seek  was  the  knowledge  of  things 
practical  and  practicable.  Then  came  Sokrates,  lead- 
ing philosophy  to  its  object  through  its  subject,  making 
it  ethical  and  psychological,  the  study  of  nature  with  and 
through  man.  In  Plato  speculation  centres  in  and  cir- 
cles round  man,  begins  to  inquire  into  the  nature  and 
origin  of  knowledge,  the  kinds  and  the  qualities  of  the 
objects  known  and  their  relation  to  the  knowing  mind, 
the  essential  character  of  ethical  acts,  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  the  good,  the  relation  of  the  sensuous  to  the 
intellectual,  the  transient  appearance  to  the  permanent 
reality,  the  man  physical  and  mortal  to  the  man  spiritual 
and  immortal,  the  constructed  universe  to  the  construct- 
ive mind.  In  Aristotle  philosophy  becomes  encyclo- 
paedic, methodical,  scientific,  aims  at  being  real  and 
comprehensive,  describing  and  interpreting  what  is.  In 
the  post-Aristotelian  schools  Greek  thought  swings 
round  from  speculative  and  scientific  to  practical  aims, 
passes  through  Stoicism  and  Epicureanism  to  Scepticism. 
The  Stoic  was  eminently  ethical,  but  in  the  true  Greek 


AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


Zll 


manner,  not  by  submission  to  authority,  but  by  obedi- 
ence to  nature,  the  realization  of  tlie  idea  given  in  his 
own  being.  Epicurus  cultivated  philosophy  as  a  means 
of  happiness,  not  as  a  search  after  truth  ;  the  science 
which  did  not  promote  pleasure  was  worthless  and  super- 
fluous. And  the  Sceptic,  anxious,  too,  to  be  practical, 
became  it  in  his  own  way,  denied  either  the  reality  or 
the  possibility  of  knowledge,  and  turned  from  the  im- 
possible or  the  delusive  to  do  and  to  be  satisfied  with 
the  probably  best. 

Now,  it  can  only  be  the  shallowest  of  all  possible 
criticisms  that  seeks  to  estimate  Greek  philosophy  by  its 
inglorious  end,  though  its  end  is  not  so  inglorious  as  it 
seems.  The  problem  was  too  complex  and  immense  to 
be  solved  by  the  minds  that  first  essayed  it ;  but  their 
essay  has  been  at  once  the  basis  of  every  other  and  the 
stimulus  to  it.  Their  very  failure  was  in  one  respect  a 
splendid  success — made  their  work  the  more  creative  of 
mental  action  and  the  energy  and  growth  it  brings. 
It  was  not  possible  that  thinkers  starting  from  the  simple 
premiss  which  was  the  implicit  principle  of  all  Greek 
thought  should  have  solved  the  problem  of  existence. 
It  had  not  been  good  had  it  been  possible.  Man  had 
more  to  gain  by  the  search  after  truth  than  by  its  pre- 
mature discovery ;  and  Greece  has  been  at  once  a  leader 
and  a  light  in  the  search. 

."  Die  Wahrhelt  ist  in  Gott, 
Uns  bleibt  das  Forschen," 

and  we  thankfully  confess  our  obligations  to  the  great 
thinkers  who  have  so  directed  and  strengthened  us  in 
our  quest. 


334  ^^^  RACES  IN  LITER  A  TURK 


The  point  our  discussion  next  reaches  is  one  where 
the  Semitic  family  and  the  Greek  people  seem  alike 
broken  and  powerless.  Rome  has  conquered  and  rules. 
Freedom  and  philosophy  have  together  forsaken  Greece  ; 
and  can  hardly  be  said  to  live  in  Rome.  Cicero  has 
written  elegant,  if  not  very  profound  or  original,  dis- 
quisitions on  various  things  philosophical.  Lucretius 
has  sung  the  praises  of  Epicurus,  and  done  his  best  to 
show  how  atoms  could  become  a  world.  Stoicism,  a 
creed  congenial  to  the  sterner  Roman  spirit,  is  making, 
and  is  for  long  to  continue  to  make,  noble  men  in 
swiftly  degenerating  times.  But  philosophy,  as  a  creat- 
ive search  after  truth,  has  not  found  a  home  in  the  im- 
perial city,  and  is  looking  for  one  elsewhere.  The 
Semitic  family  seems  doomed  ;  its  great  nations  are 
either  dead  or  dying.  Assyria  has  ceased  to  be.  Phoe- 
nicia, aged,  withered,  feeble,  is  hardly  alive.  Carthage 
is  eclipsed ;  against  her  the  delenda  est  had  gone  forth. 
Israel,  proud,  subject,  weeping  under  an  alien  king,  sits 
cold  in  the  lengthening  shadow  of  national  extinction, 
and  scarcely  dares  to  dream  of  her  ancient  hopes. 
Hebrew  has  died  ;  Aramaean  lives.  Syrians  are  every- 
where, swarm  in  the  capital, 

"  In  Tiberim  defluxit  Orontes," 

and  are  everywhere  useful,  used,  trusted,  despised.  The 
Jew  is  becoming  a  citizen  of  the  world,  has  penetrated 
to  India,  to  China  even,  has  quarters  and  colonies  in 
every  city  of  the  empire,  can  count  his  thousands  in 
Rome  and  Alexandria.  In  Nazareth  one  who  shall 
make  the  name  of  Jew  at  once  illustrious  and  infamous 


AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


335 


for  all  time,  is  beginning  to  move  to  love  or  hate  the 
minds  of  men.  In  Tarsus  a  youth  is  awakening  to  the 
world  about  him,  asking  many  things,  what  it  is  to  be, 
to  be  a  Jew,  a  Greek.  Everywhere  within  the  old  the 
seeds  of  a  new  order  are  falling,  and  shall  yet  fructify, 
causing  death  while  creating  life. 

In  Alexandria  the  thoughts  and  faiths  of  men  from 
many  lands  met  and  mingled.  The  Greeks  were  the 
sons  of  the  men  who  had  followed  Alexander,  more 
cosmopolitan  than  the  old  Hellenes  had  been.  Yet 
they  loved,  as  men  ever  do  when  planted  on  a  foreign 
soil,  to  glorify  their  fatherland,  and  to  enrich  them- 
selves with  the  treasures  of  its  genius.  The  literature 
of  Greece  was  collected  in  Alexandria,  and  the  place 
felt  the  inspiration  of  its  presence.  There  were,  too, 
in  the  city  children  of  the  soil,  sons  of  the  ancient 
empire,  contributing  their  quota  to  the  collective  mind 
and  its  wealth.  There,  too,  were  Jews,  many  thousands 
of  them,  breathing  the  spirit  of  the  place.  They  were 
far  from  Judea,  and  by  and  by  its  polity,  institutions, 
temple,  worship,  even  its  speech,  grew  strange  to  them. 
Without  these,  Judaism  tended  to  become  less  a  formal 
authority,  more  a  quickening  spirit.  The  rabbinical 
tradition  was  broken  ;  the  inflexible  sacerdotalism  of 
home  was  softened.  The  Scriptures  were  translated 
into  Greek  ;  and  the  new  speech  created  a  new  order  of 
ideas.  The  old  tongue  had  been  sacred,  had  preserved 
many  distinctive  and  exclusive  associations ;  but  the 
new  tongue  was  at  once  common  and  classical,  the 
tongue  of  the  market  and  the  schools.  The  place  Hel- 
lenized  the  men,  and  the  language  their  Scriptures.  In 
the  museums,  libraries,  and  academies  they  studied  the 
literature  of  Greece  ;  and  in  the  synagogue  they  heard 


336  THE  RACES  m  LITERATURE 

the  Book  their  fathers  had  revered  as  the  Word  of  God 
speak  to  them  in  Greek.  Plato  was  read  with  eyes 
accustomed  to  Moses,  and  Moses  with  eyes  accustomed 
to  Plato,  and  a  spirit  whose  existence  was  before  un- 
guessed  was  unsphered  in  both.  Hebrew  faith  and 
Greek  science  were  alike  loved.  Heathen  wisdom  was 
made  an  effluence  of  the  divine.  The  antitheses  or 
incompatibilities  of  the  letter  were  overcome  by  a  meth- 
od of  interpretation  which  left  the  interpreter  fancy  free, 
able  to  make  the  words  and  records  of  the  past  reflect 
the  mind  of  the  present.  The  philosophy  of  Greece 
was  evolved  from  Moses,  and  the  God  of  Moses  was 
proved  to  have  lived,  ruled,  and  been  believed  in 
Greece. 

The  Judeo-Greek  philosophy,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  its  intrinsic  worth,  must  be  judged  of  the 
highest  historical  importance.  In  it  Semitic  religion  and 
Greek  knowledge  consciously  met  and  consciously  tried 
to  unite.  Philo's  system  may  be  in  the  highest  degree 
artificial  and  arbitrary.  His  allegorical  interpretations 
may  be  forced,  fanciful,  often  ridiculous.  He  may  have 
put  too  much  of  Plato  into  Moses,  too  much  of  Moses 
into  Plato.  His  notion  of  Deity  may  have  been  crude 
and  inconsistent.  He  may  have  too  absolutely  trans- 
lated the  Hebrew  idea  of  the  inexpressible  Name  into 
the  Greek  idea  of  the  inconceivable  Being.  His  method 
of  establishing  relations  between  the  Absolute  and  the 
relative,  God  and  the  world,  may  have  been  violent  and 
without  any  basis  in  reason.  But  once  criticism  has 
said  its  last  word  against  his  system,  it  still  remains 
true  that  he  and  his  school  mark  the  beginning  of  a  new 
era  in  the  history  of  philosophy  and  philosophic  thought. 
They  have  about  equal  significance  for  Neo-Greek  phi- 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  33 y 

losophy  and  Christian  theology,  prepared  the  way  for 
both,  and  make  the.  work  of  both  more  possible,  supply- 
ing in  the  one  case  new  principles  and  premisses,  in  the 
other  appropriate  and  appropriable  modes  of  thought 
and  speech. 

Neo-Platonism  may  be  said  to  be,  in  a  sense,  an 
attempt  to  construe  from  the  Greek  side  and  in  the 
Greek  method  Semitic  faith,  as  Philo'^  had  been  an 
attempt  from  the  Judaic  side  to  translate  Greek  philoso- 
phy into  Hebrew  religion.  It  was  certainly  rooted  in 
the  older  Greek  thought,  owed  much  to  the  Eleatics, 
Plato,  Aristotle,  the  Stoics,  Its  problems,  too,  were,  in 
great  part,  the  same,  yet  significantly  constructed  from 
the  subjective  rather  than  the  objective  side.  It  tried 
to  conceive  Being,  absolute  and  relative,  as  some  of  the 
older  schools  had  done,  so  combining  their  once  inde- 
pendent and  opposed  ideas  as  to  form  its  own  Trinity, 
the  abstract  or  pure  Being  of  the  Eleatics,  the  reason, 
the  vooq  of  Aristotle,  and  the  creator,  the  ^riiuoupx6<^ 
of  Plato.  But  the  distinctive  peculiarities  of  Neo- 
Platonism  were  on  the  subjective  side.  It  was  religious 
as  no  earlier  Greek  system,  not  even  the  Pythagorean, 
had  been.  It  was  indeed  essentially  a  philosophy  doing 
its  best  to  become  a  religion.  It  tried  to  reach  its 
object  by  faith,  not  by  reason,  by  intuition,  not  by  spec- 
ulation or  inference.  It  believed  in  ecstasy  rather  than 
science,  visions,  lustrations,  mystic  rites  and  symbols 
rather  than  open-eyed  inquiry  and  patient  study  of 
nature  and  man.  It  had  indeed  a  most  un-Hellenic  but 
strongly  Oriental  contempt  of  the  body,  and  respect  for 
self-denials,  penances,  and  ablutions.  Plotinus  thought 
it  would  be  folly  to  leave  to  posterity  an  image  of  him- 
self, and  so  v>ould  not  allow  his  portrait  to  be  painted 


338       THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

or  even  tell  the  day  of  his  birth,  the  names  of  his 
parents  or  his  native  land.  It  is  true  the  Neo-Platon- 
ists  were  ostentatiously  Greek,  but  they  were  it  as  Philo 
was  ostentatiously  Hebrew.  Their  system  was  evolved 
from  the  ancient  mythologies  and  philosophies,  as  his 
had  been  from  Moses,  by  a  method  of  interpretation 
which  left  the  interpreted  at  the  mercy  of  the  interpreter. 
Neo-Platonism  was  a  splendid  and  even  tragic  endeavor 
of  Greek  philosophy  to  appropriate,  disguise  in  its  own 
forms,  and  turn  to  its  own  uses  Semitic  religion.  Julian, 
was  at  once  the  symbol  of  its  history  and  the  prophecy 
of  its  fate.  It  died  while  still  young,  amid  forces  it  had 
tried  at  once  to  assimilate  and  resist,  conquered  by  the 
Galilean,  the  religion  of  the  future,  which  no  philosophy 
of  the  past  could  either  express  or  vanquish. 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  this  paper  to  dis- 
cuss the  conception  of  God  evolved  and  formulated  in 
the  Christian  schools  of  Alexandria.  But  this  much 
may  be  said — it  was,  perhaps,  the .  most  notable  result 
of  the  meeting  of  Semitic  belief  and  Indo-European 
thought.  The  one  supplied  the  facts  and  the  faith  that 
had  to  be  interpreted,  but  the  other  the  interpretation. 
The  influence  of  Neo-Platonic  philosophy  on  Christian 
theology  has  been  well,  though  it  can  hardly  be  said 
sufficiently  discussed,  especially  on  what  may  be  term- 
ed its  negative  side.  There  is  no  harder  problem 
either  in  religion  or  philosophy  than.  How  ought  we  to 
conceive  God  ?  How  can  he  be  made  an  object  at  once 
of  thought  and  of  love  and  worship  ?  The  reason  ever 
tends  to  deprive  Deity  of  the  qualities  that  win  the 
heart  and  touch  the  imagination.  As  He  is  refined  by 
the  one  He  becomes  lost  to  the  others.  Thought,  too, 
can    ill    conceive    the    relation  of  the  Infinite  to   the 


AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


339 


finite.  Are  not  these  indeed  contradictory  and  mutually 
exclusive  notions  ?  Does  not  infinite  by  its  very 
nature  exclude  finite  Being  ?  God  must  be  absolutely 
perfect ;  but  how  can  an  absolutely  perfect  Being  be  a 
Creator  ?  Does  not  creation  imply  that  He  was  either 
less  than  perfect  before  or  more  than  perfect  after  it  ? 
Then,  if  to  escape  the  difficulties  of  Atheistic  Dualism, 
thought  falls  back  on  a  theistic  Monism,  what  is  the 
result  ?  It  may  evolve  an  Akosmism  or  Theopantism, 
which  is  but  the  apotheosis  of  nature  ;  or  an  Emana- 
tionism,  which  makes  the  universe  of  phenomenal  and 
finite  Being  an  efflux  of  the  real  and  infinite.  But 
Deity  so  universalized  and  transformed  is  Deity 
annihilated.  Pantheism  and  Pankosmism  are  but  the 
ideal  and  real  sides  of  the  same  thought.  The  pan- 
theist is  a  metaphysician,  the  pankosmist  a  physicist,  and 
are  distinguished  by  what  is  but  a  verbal  difference. 
In  neither  case  can  what  occupies  the  place  of  Deity 
be  an  ethical  and  personal  being. 

Now,  ancient  thought  had  conspicuously  failed  to 
find  a  God  the  reason  could  acknowledge  and  the  heart 
love.  The  Hebrews  had  believed  in  a  personal  God 
and  Creator,  but  they  had  been  intuitive  theists,  not 
rational  philosophers.  The  Judeo-Greek  school  had 
discovered  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  the  relation  of 
God  to  the  world,  and  had  tried  to  vanquish  it  by  the 
fiction  of  a  semi-personal,  semi-impersonal  Logos, 
graduated  orders  of  being,  losing  in  divinity  as  they 
retreated  from  the  divine.  Neo-Platonism  had  felt  the 
difficulty  in  a  much  more  eminent  degree.  Their 
Absolute  was  too  absolute  to  be  in  any  way  limited  or 
qualified  ;  their  Perfect  too  perfect  to  sustain  any 
relation  to  an  imperfect  creation  or  creature.     As  he 


3  40       THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

was  made  inconceivable,  he  was  made  inaccessible  ;   as 
he  was  denuded  of  qualities,  he  ceased  to  be   a  Being 
that  could  be  reached  by  the  reason,  represented  by  the 
.  thought,  or  loved  by  the  heart.      So  their  idea  of  God 
helped  the  evolution   of  the    Christian  conception  by 
showing  what  God  ought  not  to  be,  how  He  might  live 
in  name  while  He  was  in  reality  dead.      And  with   this 
other  and  more  positive  influences  combined,  eminently 
the  influences  of  the  great  Christian  facts,   which  were 
interpreted    as    revelations    of    the    sublimest   ethical 
qualities  and  relations  in  the  Godhead.     God  was  con- 
ceived  as    a   unity,   but  not  as  a    simplicity ;     as   an 
absolute,  but   as  an  absolute  to  whom  relations   were 
immanent  and  essential.     He  was  a  Being  capable  of 
loving,  capable  of  being  loved  ;  for  by  a  necessity  of 
His  nature  He  had  been  eternally  at  once  object  and 
subject  of  love.     He  could  know  and  be  known  ;  for  to 
be   as    He   was    and   what   He  was    was  to  be   both 
the  known  and  the  knower.     He  could  act,  for  action 
was  necessary  to  His  essence.     The  impossibility,  that 
had   so   perplexed  ancient  thought,  of  conceiving    an 
unchangeable  related  to  the  changing,   the   impassible 
related  to  the  passible,  was  overcome  by  the  idea  that 
made  the  active  and  transient  relations  to  the  universe 
but  the  transcript  of  the  relations  living  and  immanent 
in    God.      The    Christian   theologians,    with  genuine, 
though  unconscious,  genius,  concerned  themselves  with 
the  objective  problem.  How  God  ought  to  be  conceived, 
not  with  the  subjective.    Whether  and  how  man  could 
know    Him.       Their    question    was    theological,    not 
pyschological ;  and  they*  tried  so  to  deal  with  it  as  to 
lift  the  idea  of  God  from  a  rigid  and  barren  abstraction 
into  a  living  and  fruitful  thought.     And  so,  significant- 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  341 

ly  enough,  a  new  theology  was  struggling,  into  being, 
while  the  philosophy  which  had  gathered  into  it  the 
noblest  elements  of  the  older  systems  was  passing  its 
meridian  and  beginning  to  slope  slowly  to  the  west  and 
eternal  night. 


There  is,  perhaps,  no  more  extraordinary  phenomenon 
in  history  than  the  sudden  emergence  from  obscurity 
to  empire  of  the  Arabs.  "  While  Europe  had  been 
marching  for  centuries  in  the  way  of  progress  and 
development,  immobility  had  been  the  distinctive 
characteristic  of  the  innumerable  tribes  who  wander 
with  their  tents  and  herds  over  the  vast  and  arid  deserts 
of  Arabia,"*  They  had  been  untouched  by  the  waves 
of  conquest,  by  the  revolutions  of  thought  and  religion 
that  had  been  sweeping  round  and  carrying  away  the 
ancient  civilized  nations.  As  their  fathers  had  been 
they  were,  without  a  literature,  without  a  polity,  a 
multitude  of  kingless  tribes,  who  each  said,  "  We  know 
no  master  but  the  Master  of  the  universe."  Yet,  at 
the  very  time  when  the  progress  of  Europe  was  stayed 
and  decay  was  superseding  development,  this  nation  of 
isolated  and  independent  tribes,  stationary  and  illiterate 
for  so  many  centuries,  suddenly  issued  from  its  deserts, 
spread  like  a  resistless  stream  northward,  eastward 
and  westward,  till  it  could  boast  an  empire  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  plains  of  India  and  the  highlands  of 
Thibet.  In  the  West  Rome  had  fallen  before  barbar- 
ians who  had  no  aim  but  plunder,  or  a  home  pleasanter 
than  the  one  they  had  left.     In  the  East  an  exhausted 

*  Dozy.,  "  Hist,  des  Musulmans  d'Espagne,"  vol.  i.  p.  i. 


342 


THE  RACES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 


civilization,  was  dying  a  most  pitiful  death,  hurried 
forward  by  miserable  court  intrigues  and  ecclesiastical 
follies.  But  the  desert  tribes  of  Arabia,  fused  into 
unity  and  raised  into  heroism  by  a  great  faith,  came 
to  do  a  needed  work,  help  the  exhausted  past  to  die, 
the  future  with  all  its  potentialities  and  promise  to 
live. 

Into  the  causes  of  this  extraordinary  apparition  we 
cannot  here  inquire.  New  thoughts  and  beliefs,  native, 
Jewish,  Christian,  may  have  been  fomenting  in  Arabia. 
The  children  of  the  dispersion  may  have  helped  to  form 
the  new  Moses ;  the  voice  of  the  old  prophets  may  have 
awakened  the  prophetic  spirit  in  the  son  of  the  desert, 
who  so  believed  in  his  own  mission  that  he  was  able  to 
make  the  men  who  knew  him  best  the  strongest  believ- 
ers in  himself  and  his  destiny.  However  it  was,  the 
faith  that  inspired  Mahomet  inspired  and  unified  his 
Arabs,  gave  them  at  once  their  mission  and  the  purpose 
and  power  to  fulfil  it.  Without  a  past,  they  made  them- 
selves a  splendid  present ;  without  a  history  they  vaulted 
at  a  bound  into  the  highest  historical  eminence.  The 
people  was  like  its  speech,  the  most  perfect  of  the  Sem- 
itic tongues.  "  This  language,  before  unknown,  shows 
itself  to  us  suddenly  in  all  its  perfection,  with  its  flexi- 
bility, its  infinite  richness,  so  complete,  in  a  word,  that 
from  that  till  now  it  has  suffered  no  important  modifica- 
tion. There  has  been  for  it  neither  infancy  nor  age  ; 
once  we  have  described  its  appearance  and  conquests, 
all  has  been  said  that  need  be  said.  I  do  not  know  if 
we  can  find  any  other  example  of  an  idiom  entering  into 
the  world  like  this,  without  an  archaic  state,  without  in- 
termediate degrees  or  preparatory  stages."  * 
"  Renan,  "  Hist,  des  Lang.  Semit,"  342. 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  343 

The  significant  point  for  us  here  is  the  influence  of 
the  Arabs  on  philosophy.  They  began  as  iconoclasts 
in  literature  as  in  art ;  but  they  soon  became  its  admir- 
ers and  missionaries.  Mahomet  hated  and  cursed  the 
poets  of  Arabia;  Omar  detested  and  destroyed  the  phi- 
losophers of  Greece.  But  another  and  sweeter  spirit 
possessed  their  sons.  In  Persia  the  Semitic  met  the 
Aryan,  found  the  thought  and  fancy  of  the  old  world  in 
forms  he  could  assimilate.  And  when_,  with  much  Aryan 
blood  in  his  veins,  he  pressed  westward,  crossed  into 
Europe,  and  settled  in  Spain,  he  began  to  build  cities, 
to  love  the  arts  and  cultivate  the  sciences  he  had  once 
hated.  The  Moorish  was  rooted  in  two  ancient  cultures, 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek ;  and  it  strove  to  wed  the 
faith  it  owed  to  the  one  with  the  philosophy  it  had  de- 
rived from  the  other.  But  it  was  only  a  fragment  of  the 
latter  that  the  Moor  understood  and  appropriated.  He 
was  a  poet ;  but  not  in  the  spirit  and  after  the  model  of 
the  Greeks.  Tragedy  he  could  only  despise  ;  Homer 
was  to  him  impious ;  a  book  of  supreme  immortality, 
with  too  many  gods  to  please  the  man  whose  mission 
was  to  proclaim  the^ being  and  authority  of  One.  Even 
Plato  he  disliked,  having  too  little  imagination  to  under- 
stand him.  But  Aristotle  was  his  delight.  In  him  he 
found  a  theory  of  the  universe  he  could  understand  and 
use  as  a  scientific  form  for  his  Monotheism.  And  so 
Aristotle  became  to  the  Moor  the  wisest  of  the  Greeks, 
the  father  of  science,  the  creator  of  logic,  physics  and 
metaphysics,  a  man  who  deserved  to  be  called  divine, 
so  great  that  he  had  had  his  eminence  recognized  by 
the  Koran,  and  was  a  conspicuous  instance  of  the  supe- 
riority God  gave  to  whom  He  willed. 

The  Arab  philosophy  was  in  the  schools  alike  of  Bag- 


344  ^^^  RACES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

dad  and  Cordova  essentially  of  one  type,  unless,  indeed, 
we  make  an  exception  as  regards  Gazali,  the  greatest 
thinker  it  had.  It  had  two  fundamental  doctrines,  which 
it  derived  from  Aristotle,  the  eternity  of  matter  and  the 
theory  of  the  intellect.  The  first,  matter,  was  incapable 
of  definition,  being  simply  possibility,  potential  existence, 
the  ability  to  be.  The  power  which  caused  the  poten- 
tial to  become  the  actual,  the  possible  the  real,  was  the 
reason,  the  intellect,  the  unmoved,  but  all-moving  God. 
There  was  no  creation,  only  generation.  The  individual 
was  a  transitory  form  of  the  eternal,  the  impersonal 
reason  personalized,  but  only  to  be  again  depersonalized 
and  absorbed  in  the  universal  intelligence. 

But  there  must  be  here  no  attempt  at  an  exposition 
of  the  Arab  philosophy.  What  needs  here  to  be  noted 
is,  it  forms  the  transition  from  ancient  philosophy  to 
modern  ;  with  it  indeed  the  latter  may  be  said  to  begin 
to  struggle  into  being.  And  it  is  at  its  beginning  essen- 
tially distinguished  from  ancient.  Modern  philosophy 
starts  with  God,  while  ancient  started  with  nature. 
What  was  given  in  the  Arab  faith  was  meant  to  be  ex- 
plained by  the  Arab  philosophy.  Theology  and  philoso- 
phy became  in  the  hands  of  the  Moors  fused  and  blend- 
ed ;  the  Greek  scientific  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  things 
interwound  with  the  Hebrew  faith  in  a  creator.  And  so 
speculation  became  in  a  new  and  higher  sense  theistic  ; 
and  the  interpretation  of  the  universe  the  explication 
of  God's  relation  to  it  and  its  relation  to  God. 

The  point  now  indicated  essentially  distinguishes 
modern  from  ancient  speculation.  Our  great  questions, 
as  to  cause,  as  to  personality,  as  to  creation  and  provi- 
dence, did  not  perplex  the  Greeks.  They  had  not  per- 
sonalized the  First  Cause,  had  not  identified  God  and 


AND  PHILOSOPHY.  345 

Creator,  had  not  to  reconcile  the  idea  of  Person  and 
Infinite.  These  are  the  offspring  of  faith  and  specula- 
tion, Christian  theology  and  Greek  philosophy ;  and 
though  the  offspring  be  now  and  then  more  troublous 
than  mind  can  well  or  peacefully  bear,  he  must  be  shal- 
low alike  in  head  and  heart  who  would  not  gladly  suf- 
fer the  trouble  for  the  discipline  and  the  strength,  the 
glory  and  the  joy  it  brings. 

The  relations  of  Moorish  to  Jewish  and  scholastic, 
and  through  them  to  modern,  philosophy  cannot  be  here 
traced  historically.  Had  it  been  possible  to  do  so,  it 
might  have  helped  us  to  see  the  source  and  meaning  of 
many  of  our  modern  tendencies.  Our  problems  were 
set  for  us  by  our  fathers.  Our  present  are  the  children 
of  past  controversies,  and  the  parent  often  explains 
what  is  inexplicable  when  the  child  is  studied  alone. 
Man  can  never  again  approach  Nature  as  the  Greek  or 
Hindu  did.  He  can  never  annihilate  in  his  own  con- 
sciousness what  it  owes  to  the  past,  can  never  see  the 
questions  that  perplex  him  as  the  men  did  who  lived 
before  the  Semite  told  the  Indo-European, . "  In  the  be- 
ginning God  created  .the  heavens  and  the  earth."  Our 
philosophies  cannot  escape  the  spell  which  faith  has 
woven  round  our  spirits.  A  science  or  a  system  that 
would  explain  the  becoming  of  the  universe  without  a 
Divine  cause,  is  atheistic  in  a  sense  proper  to  the  mod 
em  world  alone,  and  can  never  lose  the  consciousness 
that  it  has  to  start  with  a  negation  that  will  not  allow  it 
to  reach  a  positive  and  assured  conclusion.  God  is  to 
us  the  cause  of  Nature,  and  Mind,  whether  scientific  or 
philosophical,  critical,  sceptical,  or  constructive,  can 
never  approach  its  ultimate  problems  as  it  did  when 
Nature  was  conceived  as  either  the  home  or  the  cause 
of  the  gods. 


3  46  THE  RA  CES  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

Here  our  inquiry  must  pause,  not  venturing  to  cioss, 
even  by  a  single  step,  the  threshold  of  modern  philos- 
ophy. While  it  has  been,  in  the  main,  a  creation  of  the 
Indo-European  mind,  the  Semitic  has  largely  supplied 
the  inspiring  ideas  and  influences.  The  universe  is 
varied,  and  needs  varied  minds  to  penetrate  its  mys- 
teries and  tell  its  meaning.  If  the  Naturalism  of  the 
one  race  has  done  much  for  modern  science,  the  Super- 
naturalism  of  the  other  has  done  no  less  for  modern 
philosophy.  It  is  significant,  indeed,  that  the  spirit  which, 
though  not  of  this  century,  has  most  stimulated  its  high- 
est speculative  thought  was  a  Semitic  spirit.  Spinoza 
might  be  the  logical  consequence  of  Descartes,  but 
while  he  owed  his  formal  principle  to  the  great  French- 
man, the  material  was  his  own.  His  philosophy  was 
modern  and  influential,  not  through  its  notion  of  nature, 
but  through  its  notion  of  God.  Pantheism  is  a  modern 
word,*  and,  in  its  proper  sense,  a  modern  theory.  In 
a  sense  predicable  of  no  ancient  system,  Spinoza's 
was  pantheistic.  The  xo<r//,o?  was  evolved  from  the 
^£o<r,  not  the  O^oq  from  the  -aogiioz.  The  world  was  con- 
strued through  God,  not  God 'through  the  world.  And 
so  the  system,  unlike  the  so-called  ancient  and  oriental 
Pantheism,    was  most  ethical  in   character,  penetrated 

*  Toland,  the  English  Deist,  was  the  first  to  use  the  word 
"  Pantheist "  and  "  Pantheism.  Aristotle  used  the  word  irdvdeiov, 
but  in  the  sense  familiarized  to  us  by  Pantheon,  a  temple  devoted 
to  all  the  gods.  (Schol.  Aristoph  Plut.,  v.  586).  So  little  was  the 
word  known,  even  after  Spinoza  had  created  the  thing,  that  Bayle 
could  only  name  him  an  Atheist,  and  his  system  Atheism.  "  Pan- 
theist" stands  in  the  sub- title  of  Toland's  work,  "  Socinianism 
Truly  Stated,"  1705  ;  and  Pantheism  receives  a  quite  distinct  defi- 
nition in  his  "  Pantheisticum,"  1720.  See  Bohmer's  interesting 
treatise,  "  De  Pantheism!  Nominis  origine  et  usu  et  notione,"  Kal. 
Sax.,  1851. 


AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


347 


and  sublimed  by  the  most  exalted  religious  ideas.  Its 
comprehensive  synthesis  seemed  to  combine  and  unify 
the  antithesis  of  infinite  and  finite  Being,  matter  and 
snirit,  God  and  man.  And  when  thought  had  grown 
aweary  of  a  Dualism  whose  terms  it  could  not  surrender 
and  whose  contradictions  it  could  not  reconcile,  it  turn- 
ed to  Spinoza  for  rest  and  quickening.  And  so  he 
found  voice  after  he  had  been  dead  and  silent  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years.  He  freshened  and  fertilized  the 
later  mind  of  Lessing,  and  suggested  some  of  the  wisest 
and  weightiest  things  the  great  critic  ever  said.  He 
opened  the  eyes  of  Goethe  to  the  divine  life  that  beat 
and  breathed  in  the  universe,  and  his  ear  to  its  silent 
harmonies.  He  made  Schleiermacher  alive  to  a  nobler 
than  the  traditional  saintliness,  and  through  him  created 
in  theolog}'  a  deeper  consciousness  of  God,  the  sense  of 
a  Divine  Presence  evc;ry where  and  in  everything,  a  joy 
in  God  that  made  the  feeling  of  dependence  on  Him  a 
source  of  daily  inspiration  and  daily  delight.  He  helped  to 
awaken  in  Schelling  the  idea  of  an  all-comprehensive  Ab- 
solute appearing  in  the  co-ordinate  forms  of  nature  and 
spirit ;  in  Hegel  the  notion  of  an  Absolute  which  united 
the  infinite  and  finite,  the  real  and  ideal,  the  temporal  and 
eternal,  nature  and  spirit,  and  was  no  inflexible  and 
unproductive  abstraction,  but  a  living  process,  an  eter- 
nal Becoming.  In  England,  too,  he  lived,  dropped 
fruitful  germs  into  the  mind  of  Coleridge  ;  and  we  may 
perhaps  hear  a  distant  echo  of  his  voice  in  the  sublime 
verses  which  tell  how  the  poet  feels — 

"A  Presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  Something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 


248  THE  RACES  IN  LITERATURE,  ETC, 

And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man ; 
A  motion  and  a  Spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things."  - 

Spinoza's  system  was  anything  but  a  final  or  exhaustive 
philosophy.  It  was  splendid  as  an  endeavor,  not  as  an 
achievement ;  and  the  degree  in  which  it  has  stimulated 
thought  but  proves  that  the  modern  spirit  possesses  a 
need  of  God  unknown  to  the  ancient,  and  craves  some 
mode  of  conceiving  and  expressing  Him  and  His  relation 
to  the  world  true  at  once  to  the  greatness  of  His  own 
nature  and  the  necessities  of  the  human  reason  and  the 
human  heart. 


THE  END. 


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